


Do You Even Realize What Your Life Means? (to me)

by pinkponyclubs



Series: Endure and Survive [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Last of Us
Genre: Angst, BAMF Happy Hogan, BAMF Pepper Potts, BAMF Peter Parker, BAMF Tony Stark, Character Deaths, Character Study, Everyone is BAMF, Gen, Guns, Harley Keener is Tony Stark's Biological Child, I WILL be doing a Left Behind DLC AU so stay tuned for that, I did so much research on tlou for this, IDK how guns work, Irondad, NOT STARKER - Freeform, Naughty Dog - Freeform, Parasites, PeterMJ (mentioned), Precious Peter Parker, The Avengers - Freeform, The Last of Us AU, Tony Stark Centric, Tony loves Harley (albeit briefly), Tony loves Peter, Video Game AU, alot of cursing, and i enjoyed every minute, and italics, but doesn't show it for like 80 chapters, but not in this world, cordyceps, except not at all, extreme overuse of the enter key, go gun control ya know, i fucking love this game, marvel AU, no powers, one character is slightly molesty so watch out for that, somewhat questionable morals, this is a questionable world ok, tony thinks alot, you can read this if you haven't played the last of us, zombies but not really zombies
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-12
Updated: 2020-04-06
Packaged: 2021-01-29 11:36:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 36,889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21409555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pinkponyclubs/pseuds/pinkponyclubs
Summary: It's an Irondad The Last of Us AU for those who've played it.for those who haven't.....The apocalypse is in full effect, and Tony Stark has a lot of pain. All of a sudden he's trusted with the life of this bright eyed kid who reminds WAY to much of another bright eyed kid, who's eyes no longer shine. Oh yeah, and the kid also might be the cure for mind kind's biggest problem. No pressure, or anything.just read it okay?
Relationships: Harley Keener & Tony Stark, James "Rhodey" Rhodes & Tony Stark, Pepper Potts & Tony Stark, Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Series: Endure and Survive [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1561525
Comments: 43
Kudos: 75





	1. Things Happen....And We Move On

**Author's Note:**

> well. here it is, the first chapter of the anticipated (by only me) Irondad The Last of Us AU. and it’s almost 5,000 words long. my back HURTS. and I really hope this is good.
> 
> enjoy?
> 
> **WARNING:** for those who haven’t played/watched the game, there is a **MAJOR CHARACTER DEATH** in this chapter. you are warned. you also might wanna get used to it.********

Harley was asleep on the couch.

It was late, almost midnight. The kid’s favorite day (it being his father’s birthday didn’t baffle him anymore - his kid was just that sweet) was drawing to a close. And Harley had fallen asleep on the couch waiting for him, the small, square box with a red and gold bow atop it that Tony knew contained his gift, still clutched in hand.

_Damn it._ Tony hadn’t meant to be as late as he was. He knew how important it was to Harley for them to celebrate birthdays together.

_“Your birthday is important, dad. You can’t just blow it off.”_

_“And why’s that, kiddo? Cause when you get as old as me, they don’t seem to matter all that much. It’s just a reminder of the tragedy of fading youth.”_

_Harley rolled his eyes, sarcasm teeming in his voice._

_“Because, dad, if you had never been born, then I would have never been born, and I am the greatest thing for this universe since, like, chocolate chip cookies or something. So why wouldn’t we celebrate the day my existence became possible?” _

_ _ _It was Tony’s turn to roll his eyes._ _ _

(But Harley was the greatest thing since chocolate chip cookies. And then some.)

But Tony knew the _real_ reason Harley loved birthdays so much. His nonna, Tony’s mother, had instilled in the boy this deep, beautiful appreciation for life which Tony himself had never been fully able to grasp.

_ _ _“Every single person on this earth was born for a reason, Harley, and while one person’s reason could be to invent some life-altering technology or cure diseases, and another’s to deliver mail or remove waste, no one person’s reason or purpose is insignificant to or beneath someone else’s. All life has meaning, bambino. And all life should be celebrated." _ _ _

Harley of course took this to mean that the birthdays of people he loved were the greatest holidays of mankind.

So Tony endured Harley’s birthday traditions of putting up party decorations everywhere even though there was to be no party, and it would only be them in the house all day, with a visit from Rhodey, of course. He endured unnecessary gifts, looking through photo albums with pictures of moments that brought up memories that Tony would really rather forget, he endured wearing birthday sashes and party hats.

He tolerated all of it, and did it with a smile on his face

.

Because it was for his kid. Everything was for Harley, now.

Except this year, Tony and Rhodey had both been called into work, to fix a problem that could’ve been fixed by their subordinates. Instead it had been caused by them, and Tony and Rhodey had been forced to go in and work hours on end to fix what could have been completely avoided in the first place. It had thrown quite the wrench in Harley’s celebratory plans. But it was done now.

With an exhausted sigh, Tony moved to the couch, and leaned into Harley’s space to speak softly in his ear, his voice teeming with indulgence. “Hey, kiddo. I thought we’d established that the couch is “a demon from hell, sent to take all comfort from anyone who dares to sleep on it”? Isn’t that what you said, huh?

Harley grimaced and shifted away from his father, not opening his eyes, before stilling and seeming to take stock of himself and decide if he wanted to wake up or not. With no warning whatsoever, he shot up, nearly bashing their heads together, and dashed to the end of the couch to shove his face into the clock on the wall.

“Yes! It’s still today, dad! It’s 11:46! You made it!”

Tony chuckled as he sank down on the couch, felt it dip toward Harley as the boy settled himself, with all his gangly, pubescent limbs, beside his father.

“Yep, I’m aware of what time it is, kiddo, which is way too late for a certain floppy headed 9-year-old to still be up.”

Harley pouted and sent Tony his famous puppy-eyed glare. “I am not 9 years old and you know it. And I was waiting for you. You took _forever_,” __Harley groaned it with all the dramatics a 14-year old could muster, which was plenty. “I was almost positive you were gonna be too late.

Tony sighed again. “Well, I’m here now. You can get to bed.”

“No way! Not until you open this, at least.”

Harley brandished the bow-topped square box from behind his back, as if he hadn’t been waving it in Tony’s face all morning, trying to build the man’s anticipation. And Tony had to admit, he was curious to know what this present Harley was so proud of was. He loved everything Harley gave him, but this present he seemed particularly excited about.

“Go on.” Harley prompted, holding the box out to Tony, who took it gently.

  
Rather than prolonging the experience for his tired boy, his snapped the weighty box open without preamble.

_ And nearly lost it._

_ _ _ Oh, kiddo. _ __

It was his mother’s watch, cleaned and shiny and looking brand new, with a new leather wrist band.

“I took Nonna’s watch and put it on a leather band Uncle Rhodey helped me get, since the old metal one was broken, and wouldn’t fit you.” Harley said softly, watching his father’s blank face. “Now you can wear it and keep it with you all the time.”

Tony turned to his son as he felt the backs of his eyes begin to sting. “Oh, buddy, this is so great. Thank you. I love it.” Harley’s face brightened like the sun, and Tony’s weary body felt lighter as Harley grinned at him.

“I knew you would. I know how much Nonna’s watch means to you, so, I just thought it would be nice if you could wear it. To remember her everyday.”

_This kid. My boy._

Tony smiled, fastening the antique watch to his wrist as Harley spoke.

“You’re right, kiddo, it is nice. I really, really love it.” He sneered teasingly at him. “And you.”

Harley rolled his eyes, but his smile was soft. “Love you, too, dad.”

Tony let his hand fall heavily on Harley’s leg, to break the atmosphere. “Alright, kiddo. I have my present. I love my present. Now it’s bedtime.”

“Dad! No! Now we have to watch at least three home videos of you as a kid. You know the rules.”

“Harley.”

“Just three, dad, I promise.”

And Tony relented, knowing Harley would be asleep before the second video ended, anyway.

Sure enough, Harley had curled into Tony’s side and nodded off by the 5 minute mark of Tony learning to ride a bike in ridiculously low quality. Which was exactly as domestic and boring as it sounded.

Tony maneuvered himself away from Harley’s grasping limbs and stood up, then scooped the thin boy into his arms, groaning as his back protested. He held Harley close to his chest, mindful of his head, as he made his way up the stairs to Harley’s poster-covered, action-figure filled room. He placed Harley gently on the mattress, after using one hand to pull the comforter back.

He took a moment, to just look at his kid, and his soft, peaceful face. It was crazy, he decided, to be able to look at one thing and know, completely, that you’re looking at your entire world. It was crazy, but it was so damn fulfilling, too.

He planted a kiss on his son’s temple as he flicked out the Yoda lamp on the bedside table.

“Goodnight, bambino.”

He pulled the comforter around Harley’s shoulders, backed away and stepped out the door, turning for one last look at his slumbering kid. And then he tugged the knob, and gently closed the door on their last moment of peace.

The sound of something repeatedly hitting the side of the house jolted him awake.

After putting Harley to bed, Tony had gone downstairs and locked all the doors and windows, turned off lights Harley had left burning, and then retreated up to his room to sleep. He had turned on the TV in a half-hearted attempt to pay attention to the news, because he’d decided once that is was very “adult” of him to always know what was happening in the world around him. And because Harley asked a lot of questions.

When he awoke, he lay on his back for a moment, staring up at the ceiling as the light from the muted TV flickers there. He was at first unsure what had woken him up, but the sound of something pounding on the side of the house starting up again made him jump and curse quietly.

“What the hell?” he mumbled, rising from the bed, his body still stiff and slow from sleep.

He flicked his gaze to the news, his bleary eyes at first making the picture hard to make out. There was a woman on the screen, talking fast into a microphone and looking harried. The headline at the bottom of the screen read,

**CORDYCEPS INFECTION SPREADING, WORSE THAN ANTICIPATED******

Tony grabbed for the remote on his bedside table and unmuted the TV in the middle of the woman saying,

_“-cent escapes could lead to the infection spreading even more. Doctors and nurses who cared for the admitted cordyceps patients report erratic and aggressive behavior, and say that the affected individuals are, quote “almost mindless” in their attacks, and seem most intent on biting their victims. This is worrisome, considering doctors have confirmed that yes, this infection can and is being spread through biting. They also report that the escaped patients are very sick, very dangerous, and very, very contagious. Infected individuals show signs of clamminess, paleness, inability to think straight, aggressive behavior, glazed eyes, growths on the body, fluid-"_

Tony pressed the mute button hard, not wanting to hear anymore. There was a heavy pit of fear in his stomach, and the woman’s shaky voice was only raising his anxiety. He’d heard about the cordyceps infection, of course he had. It had allegedly started in Virginia, supposedly with an attack there, and was reported as an infection that caused a person to “lose their minds to something” and not be able to control themselves. There wasn’t much information besides that, and no details, only that it was spreading fairly quickly. Until now.

This was the most information about the situation Tony had heard so far, and he wondered what had prompted them to share it all now. Was it getting bad enough that people needed to watch for the infected? Did they really attack other people?

The loud pounding resumed, startling Tony so bad he dropped the remote.

_Right. What the hell is making that noise?_

Tony’s first thought was that it was Mark’s dog, Dozer, who often ran around and made noises at night, so he wasn’t concerned. But he was awake, and filled with nervous energy from what he’d heard on the news. His first instinct was to check on Harley, but he didn’t want to risk waking him. So he bypassed Harley’s room on his way downstairs to the living room, where the moon was shining through the sliding glass doors onto the floor in the darkness.

Tony wondered what time it was, and instinctively reached in the pocket of his pants for his phone, which wasn’t there. “Damn, where is that thing?” His voice stayed low, though there was no real reason to whisper. It was just late and dark and there was someone sleeping upstairs and Tony was nervous, so it happened naturally. Tony vaguely remembered setting his phone down in the kitchen while checking the windows, so he took two steps forward towards the counter.

Out of the corner of his eye, through the glass doors and in the still of the night beyond the reach of the porch light, a flash of dark movement had him freezing dead in his tracks.

His heart pounded as he stared into the darkness, eyes straining to catch a glimpse of movement again.

Three things happened in quick succession.

He heard and sensed a flurry of movement from outside, and tensed with fear.

Harley stepped through the kitchen toward him, holding his buzzing phone, and said shakily, “Dad?” Tony’s head swiveled in his direction.

A fast, frantic, familiar figure ran into the beam of the porch light and slammed hard into the glass door.

Harley’s terrified cry broke his stupor, and he stared dumbly for a millisecond as his neighbor Mark, who looked sick (the infection oh my god) and bloody and and frantic and terrifying screamed animalistically and pounded at the glass.

_The breakable glass._

Tony moved.

The drawer beside him was open and the gun _(just for emergencies the gun is just for emergencies ohmygodthisisanemergency)_ was in his hand before his brain even processed the actions, trained at the…..infected person. Mark. But not Mark.__

The sounds of Harley’s panicked breaths and the infected’s desperate noises and pounding fists filled his ears.

_“Dad!?”_

The glass broke and the infected surged forward just after Harley cried out.

Fear overtook him, he pulled the trigger, Harley screamed.

_And the thing only stumbled back._

Two more shots rang out, and Harley sobbed.

The infected fell, gurgled and jerked, then lay still.

_Mark. __Mark.___

_ _ _ _ _ _Breathe, Tony. Just breathe._ _ _ _ _ _

“D-dad?”

_Harley._

Tony turned to his son, who was trembling and curled in on himself and holding Tony’s still buzzing phone in a vice-like grip. His wide, wet eyes stared blankly at the bleeding body on the ground.

“Harley.”

Nothing.

_“Harley.”_

The boy jerked his eyes to his father, who surged towards him, still clutching the handgun _(emergenciesemergenciesemergencies)_ desperately. __

With his free hand, Tony gripped Harley’s shoulder, and let the presence of his son settle his nerves just enough to get himself under control.

He took a deep breath and shoved the gun into the waistband of his jeans. He grabbed Harley’s hand and pried his freezing, pale fingers from the phone, bringing it to his face to read the screen:

**60 missed calls from Rhodey******

And a slew of messages:

** **have you seen the news everything is crazy**** ** **

** _ _ ** ** _the infected people are killing people****_ ** ** _ _ **

** _ _ ** ** _ _ ** ** _The infection has spread really really bad****_ ** ** _ _ ** ** _ _ **

** _ _ ** ** _ _ ** ** _ _ ** ** _They’re like monsters****_ ** ** _ _ ** ** _ _ ** ** _ _ **

** _ _ ** ** _ _ ** ** _ _ ** ** _ _ ** ** _Tony where r u****_ ** ** _ _ ** ** _ _ ** ** _ _ ** ** _ _ **

** _ _ ** ** _ _ ** ** _ _ ** ** _ _ ** ** _ _ ** ** _Tony PLEASE i need to know u and harls are ok****_ ** ** _ _ ** ** _ _ ** ** _ _ ** ** _ _ ** ** _ _ **

** _ _ ** ** _ _ ** ** _ _ ** ** _ _ ** ** _ _ ** ** _ _ ** ** _ANSWER ME****_ ** ** _ _ ** ** _ _ ** ** _ _ ** ** _ _ ** ** _ _ ** ** _ _ **

The messages continue like this, a hundred of them, frantic and rambling, until the final one, 30 minutes ago:

** **_Im coming to get you and harley ok stay there. please be ok. dear god_**** ** **

_ _ _ _ _Rhodey is coming. Thank God. Please let him make it here._ _ _ _ _

Tony steeled himself and looked up at his son.

Harley looked frozen, eyes glassy and terrified, threatening to spill tears. “Harley.” Tony reached out and grabbed his son, pulling him close.

“It’s ok, bambino, it’s ok now.” Except it wasn’t.

The reality of the situation hit him, and he realized that they were probably still in danger. There were windows and openings everywhere, and the glass doors were nothing but metal frames now, letting in the night breeze.

Now that it was quiet, the last moments since he’d woken to the sounds seemed like a fever dream. He’d probably be able to convince himself it had all been a dream if it wasn’t for the sickeningly familiar corpse now staining the carpet with thick, dark blood.

_Ignore that. It doesn’t matter now. What matters is keeping Harley safe._

Just as Tony was grabbing for his son’s arm to pull him away from the broken door, the screech of tires sounded outside, and headlights moved through the windows.

_Rhodey._

_ _Tony dragged Harley towards the door as a car door slammed. _ _

“Come on, Harls, we have to go now, Uncle Rhodey’s here.” At least he hoped it was Rhodey.

Being dragged finally seemed to break Harley from his daze. “Go? Go where — dad, what’s _happening?_ W-what was wrong - Mr. Mark…. You _shot_ him… but he was - what was _wrong_ with him?”

Tony had stopped dragging Harley to listen to him, and they were standing in the kitchen. Harley’s stuttering confusion made Tony’s heart hurt. _God, he’s so young. _

“I don’t know, bambino. Mark was…sick. Apparently lots of people are sick. So we have to leave. It’s not safe.”

Tears finally fell from the boy’s brimming eyes. “Are we sick?”

“No, of course not. We —”

Pounding at the door interrupted him.

“Tony! Tony, open the door! It’s Rhodey!”

“Cmon, kiddo.”

Opening the door to Rhodey calmed something in Tony, even if his best friend looked just as frightened and harried as he himself probably did.

“Oh my god, Tony! Where have you been, I’ve been calling —”

Tony pushed past him, still clutching Harley’s arm, and moved towards the still running car.

“Believe me, platypus I am just as glad to see your familiar, non-undead face as you are mine, but we don’t have time. We have to get out of here. It’s not safe to just stand around. Hop in, Harley.”

Tony had opened the backseat door and helped Harley into the car as he spoke. He shut the door and turned to Rhodey, who clenched his jaw and moved to the driver’s side.

“Yeah, you’re telling me. Whatever’s happening, this thing, this — infection? It’s insane.”

The two men settled themselves into the car, and Rhodey backed out, then sped away from their home, and _finally,_ they were on the road. It just felt safer to be moving.__

“Hey, Harley.” Rhodey looked in the rearview mirror at his nephew, who was quietly taking in everything around them through the windows as they drove. “How you doing, kiddo?”

“I’m fine,” was the demure response.

Tony pushed Harley’s what must be considerable trauma to the back of his mind. I’ll deal with that later, when we’re safe.

“What do you know? How did this happen?” He directed at Rhodey.

Rhodey clutched the wheel tightly as he controlled the car, stopping at a three-way as two police cars, sirens wailing, sped past them. He turned them in the direction of town.

“Do you remember that woman we were talking about the other day on break?”

Tony swallowed. “The one who attacked and killed her husband and those three police officers in Virginia? Yeah. Is that...What this is?”

Rhodey looked grim. “Yeah. It’s some sort of — parasite, or something. Said it comes from some bad crops from South America — the ones they recalled.”

“So this is everywhere?"

“All across the states, I’m hearing. We aren’t the only town. It’s worse in big cities. New York City, Los Angeles ...its a shit show up there. _Everywhere_.”

Harley whimpered.

Tony didn’t know what to say to console him.

“Oh _shit.”_

Rhodey’s curse brought his attention back to the road, where there was a line of traffic as far as the eye could see headed out of town.

A man had stepped out of the car in front of them, holding his hand in front of his eyes like a visor, as if to try and see something besides the trail of red tail lights.

“Look like everyone had the same idea —”

Tony broke off with a strangled gasp as a bloody man in a hospital gown scrambled out of the brush on the side of the road and slammed into the man, knocking to the ground and beginning to tear into him as he screamed. Two more infected followed the first, launching themselves into the open car, fighting to get the woman inside.

Rhodey put the car into reverse as the first infected rose from the now dead driver and rushed toward them.

“Go! Rhodey, _go!”_

Rhodey floored the gas pedal as he frantically swiveled the wheel. The time it took to position the car in the right direction gave the infected time to slam into the backseat window.

Harley screamed.

Rhodey floored it again and they raced toward town.

“Turn here, downtown! Maybe we can get out that way!”

Tony was yelling, he couldn’t help it, his heart was racing.

_What the fuck. What the fuck, what the fuck, what the FUCK._

“Tony! Calm down.” Rhodey said tensely.

Tony hadn’t realized he’d been speaking aloud.

“Those - those people - they attacked them. They're ...they're dead.”

Harley’s voice was almost hysterical.

“It’s okay, Harley.” It was not okay.

Tony directed Rhodey to turn again, but the road was full of people, running frantically in every which way.

The headlights fell on them, but they were too terrified to fully recognize a car coming towards them.

“Move, people, _move._” Rhodey muttered, slowing the car almost to a stop.__

_ _ _No no no no no don’t stop. _ _ _

“Keep driving, Rhodey!” Tony snapped, fear rushing through his veins and panic filling him.

_They’re back there. They’re behind us. Keep driving. _

“I can’t fucking drive through them —”

“Well back up then—!”

_“They’re behind me, too!”_

_“Look,_ look, there’s an opening, just go through, hurry up!”__

Rhodey slowly maneuvered the car through the crowd, Tony’s anxiety rising higher and higher with every second ticking by and every soft whimper from Harley.

Finally, they made through the people and onto a clear street.

“Okay, okay, we’re through. We should head towards —”

** _“LOOK OUT!”****_ **

Harley’s cry registered just before there was the flash of headlights, a massive impact, a woosh of air, the sound of shattered glass. And nothing.

_“Dad”_

Tony’s ears were ringing.

_“Dad, please!”_

The sound of guttural growls and Harley’s shaky voice broke through.

When Tony opened his eyes, he saw two women in a car with broken windows. One was tearing the other’s guts out and flinging them everywhere.

_Right. Fuck._

Tony twisted around to answer Harley’s cries for him. He saw his son, blood and tears smeared on his young face.

_I’ve got to protect him. I’ve got to get him out of here. _

Tony raised his leg in the overturned car.

“Get back, bambino.”

He repeatedly nailed the spider-webbed windshield with his booted foot until it shattered.

The open windshield seemed to let in all the horrific sounds. Screams, wails, growls, sobbing, sirens, pounding feet.

Breathe. Block it out. Get away.

Tony scrambled out of the hole where the windshield had been, his battered body protesting greatly.

He has barely gotten to his feet when a force slammed into his side, knocking into the overturning car.

He instinctively curled his arms in front of himself, desperately holding back the man _\- not a man -_ who was attacking him. __

Up close, their eyes were cloudy, bulging, and unfocused. This one had obviously gotten to someone else, and was covered in blood.

Almost an instant after the thing grabbed him, it was on the ground, convulsing before lying still, a huge dent in it’s head from where Rhodey had brained it with a brick.

_Breathe._

“Dad?”

Tony turned back to the car, reaching in for Harley’s outstretched hand as Rhodey whirled back towards the chaos, brick ready.

When he pulled Harley out of the car, mindful of the jagged glass, his son stumbled into him with a sharp cry.

“What is it? Are you hurt?”

Harley’s eyes were bright. “M- My leg hurts. I don’t - I don’t think I can walk.”

Rhodey swiveled towards them, panic painting his face. “We’re gonna have to _run.”_

_ _Tony felt sick._ _

Lightening fast, he yanked the gun from his waistband and shoved it at Rhodey, who looked at it blankly for half a second before cocking it.

“Keep us safe.” He scooped Harley into his arms as he said it.

Rhodey nodded, and surged forward.

It was a blur. All around them, people we’re running, screaming, and _dying._ Cars crashing and burning, things exploding. Infected running every which way, tackling people and ripping into them with mindless violence. People sobbing at the side of dead loved ones.

“I’m scared, dad.” Harley sobbed into his neck, and Tony felt his heart shake as the world crashed and burned around him.

“Just hold on tight, bambino. And don’t look. Keep your eyes closed.”

Harley trembled in his arms.

“It’s all gonna be okay.”

It didn’t sound very convincing.

They cut through an alley, a break from the chaos of the main street.

An infected jumped from a corner at Tony, and Rhodey shot it without preamble.

_Is that just what we have to do now?_

They ran past a fence that the infected people were climbing over.

Tony hated hearing them at his back, their growls and wails and pounding feet sounding like a nightmare.

_They’re right behind us. _

“Through the bar!” Rhodey yelled, and they scrambled up the steps and through the back door of Natasha’s, their favorite local bar. _Hang outs are a thing of the past now. _

As soon as Tony was through, Rhodey slammed the door on the infected behind them, their arms reaching through and grasping desperately at nothing as they screamed their anger.

Rhodey put all his weight on the wooden door, holding them back.

He locked eyes with Tony. “Get to the highway.”

Tony was floored. _“What!?”_

_ _“Just _go_, Tony. You have Harley. I’ll hold them off for a bit longer and then I’ll catch up with you. I can outrun them.”___ _

_ _ _ _Rhodey.____

_ _ _ _ _ _“Uncle Rhodey?!”_ _ _ _ _ _

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _Harley. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Tony’s gaze bore into Rhodey.

“I’ll meet you there.”

Rhodey stared back.

Tony slammed through the front door and kept running.

_“Dad, no!_ We can’t leave him! Dad!”__

Tony raced over the pavement of the parking lot onto a beaten path into the woods. It was a shortcut to the highway.

Infected raced after them.

“He’ll be fine, Harley.”

They were at his back again. Closer than they’d ever been. Their disgusting sounds were right in his ears. He could see their terrifying shadows dance in front of him from the light of the moon.

He kept running.

Carrying Harley was getting to him. His arms and legs burned and were heavy as lead, slowing him down. His lungs ached.

_I can’t afford to be slow._

_ _ _Harley can’t afford for me to be slow. _ _ _

Just when he thought he wouldn’t be able to take another step, just when he could practically fell the infecteds’ breaths on his back, a bright light shined on them, and several shots rang, peppering into the bodies behind him and mowing them down.

All was still as Tony saw what had to be a soldier in front of them, gun still trained in their direction.

_Oh, Thank Christ._

“We’re safe, Harley. We’re safe now, bambino.”

For the first time it felt like he wasn’t lying to him.

He should’ve known it was false.

Safety and peace were a thing of the past now, too.

The soldier started to speak into his radio, but stopped as Tony started towards him. “Please. My son, I think his leg is broken, I—”

“Stop right there!” The man yelled, gun still pointed at them, and Tony froze.

“We- We’re not sick. We need help—”

_“I’ve got two civilians in the outer perimeter. Please advise.”_ The soldier consulted his radio.

“Dad?” Harley whispered, “Dad, what about Uncle Rhodey?”

“I’m gonna go back for him, okay?” _I’m gonna get him back. It’s just me, Harley, and Rhodey._ “I’m just gonna get you safe and then I’m gonna get him.”

___“Sir,”___ the soldier spoke again, softly. He’d lowered the gun slightly. _____“There’s a young boy.”_  
______

Unease grew in Tony’s stomach.

_“But….”_ Tony wished he could see the man’s face.___“Yes, sir.”___

Tony started forward again.

“Listen, man. I think you probably know the hell we've just been through. I just need my son safe, okay? I—”

The man raised the gun.

The unease exploded, and Tony acted on instinct.

He threw himself backwards, spinning and losing his grip on Harley as the machine gun released a slew of bullets at them.

Tony rolled down the small hill, panicked because Harley was ripped from him and there was a man trying to kill them for no reason _they weren’t sick they weren’t—_

Tony heard footsteps running towards him, and rolled over to see the soldier pointing the gun down at him.

Tony raised his hand. “Please—!”

Another shot rang out and the soldier fell as Rhodey ran up to him.

_Breathe. _

  
Then Rhodey said,

“Oh, no…..Oh _god.”_

Harley was sobbing.

_ _ _It sounded like choking._ _ _

Tony snapped to all fours, looking around for where Harley had fallen.

To where Harley was lying, gasping and choking, with blood steadily blooming from his stomach.

_He couldn’t get a breathe._

“Harley!”

_ _ _ _ _No no no no no no._ _ _ _ _

He didn’t know how, but he was by Harley’s side in a blink, grabbing at his son’s hands.

“Let me see, you’re okay, bambino, you’re gonna be alright, you - you’re okay, you’re ok I promise—”

Tony tried to lift his shoulder up, to get a better look at, god, _the hole in his child,_ but the movement had Harley screaming and a rush of blood pouring from the wound and pooling under Harley’s body.

_ _ _Harley._ _ _

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, bambino, I know, I know it hurts, just—”

Harley’s cries were quieting into pained squeals.

_God this can’t be happening. _

Tony, desperate now, tried to lift Harley into his arms, pick him up take him somewhere get him help, but Harley whined and squealed and struggled weakly against the pain, against his father who was causing the pain.

And then he just......stopped. And _stilled._

And all was quiet but for Tony’s panicked gasps and Rhodey’s sob.

“Harley?”

_Harley._

“D- Don’t- Harley, bambino—-”

But there was nothing.

_Harley._

_No._

_ _ _ No way no way no no no no Harley no. _ _ _

“Tony……._Tony." __Rhodey.___ Rhodey sounded wrecked.

But that didn’t matter.

After that night, nothing did. Not for a long, long time.


	2. People Are Making Apocalypse Jokes Like There's No Tomorrow

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> guys, I had a TIME posting this chapter cause idk how to work ao3 lmao. but it's here now!!!! And I'm so glad people like it lol. I copied the intro straight from the game cause it's vital to the feeling of a lot of time passing and shit going down, so creds to Naughty Dog - I fucking love you guys. But hurry up with The Last of Us 2, will ya?

_ “The number of deaths has passed 200. The Governor has called for a state of emergency—” _

_ “There were hundreds and hundreds of bodies lining the streets—” _

_ “Panic spread worldwide after a leaked report from The World Health Organization showed that the latest vaccination tests have failed.” _

_ “...with the bureaucrats out of power we can finally take the necessary steps to—” _

_ “Los Angeles is now the latest city to be placed under martial law—” _

_ “All residents are required to report to their designated quarantine—” _

_ “Riots have continued for a third consecutive day and winter rations are at an all time low.” _

_ “A group calling themselves the Avengers have claimed responsibility for both attacks—” _

_ “Their public charter calls for the return of all branches of government.” _

_ “Demonstrations broke out following the execution of six more alleged Avengers—” _

** _“You can still rise with us. Remember when you’re lost in the darkness- look for the light. _ **

** _Believe in the Avengers.”_ **

** _SUMMER_ **

** _20 YEARS LATER_ **

  
  


Abrupt knocking had him jumping up, jolting himself out of sleep.

_ Jesus. _

He hadn’t dreamed about Harley in a long time. His stupid fucking brain couldn’t decide 

If it wanted to push him as far back as possible and forget him, or push him to the forefront at every opportunity and say _ “Hey! Yoohoo! Remember you’re dead kid?” _

Tony wasn’t too fond of own goddamn brain. 

He wasn’t too fond of much anymore. 

More sharp, precise knocking jolted him from his mental pity party. 

He groaned as he rose from the uncomfortable-as-a-sack-of-rocks mattress. The apocalyptic world wasn’t very accommodating to aging individuals. Or anyone else. _ We live in a society, _was something dumb Harley would say that he never really understood.

Tony shoved it back again. 

_ Christ. You’re really working hard today, huh? _ He accused his subconscious. _ Well, fuck off. _

He shuffled to the door as the knocking persisted.

“I’m coming, I’m coming.” He opened the stained wooden door to reveal the brooding presence behind it.

_ Well, there was one thing he was a little fond of. But don’t tell her that. _

Pepper stood on the other side, hip cocked and mouth twisted in her _ I am not fucking happy _expression. 

Tony had a second to think _ please don’t let her be mad at me _before he saw the abused state of her face.

She shoved past him, entering the space, and Tony closed the door. 

“Sleep well?” She asked pleasantly in a way that was decidedly _ not _ pleasant, as she grabbed the bottle of opened whiskey on the rickety table and pouring more than a few fingers into a cloudy glass.

“Want one?”

“No, I...No.”

_ I had more than enough last night. Don’t tell her that, either. _

“Suit yourself, I—”

“Where were you, Pepper?”

She stopped, then settled herself against the table and just _ looked _at him. 

“West End district. Delivering the pills _ you _were scheduled to deliver. I thought I’d take that little task off your hands considering you were shitfaced last night. Or do you not remember that?”

Tony winced. _ Always got a little mad left for me. _

God, he loved her. Ball buster, that she was.

“Okay, Pep, I get it. But, let me guess. Deal went wrong, they fucked you up, and then made off with our pills, huh?” He said it to get a rise out of her, but only because he knew that if that had happened, it was all his fault. _ We’re not gonna have enough ration cards for Fall and Winter and it’s gonna my fucking fault. _

But Pepper scoffed at him like he was the dumbest person alive.

“The deal went off without a single problem, alright? Jesus, what do take me for, some wilting flower? I’ve handled a million business trades and I’ll do a million more, even without my muscle around.” She gestured at him, her dubbed _ muscle, _and then pulled a stack of blue cards from her pocket and waved them at him smugly.

“Enough ration cards to last us _ months, _easy.”

Okay. Okay. Trust Pepper to make everything go her way even when dealing with criminals and thugs. Well, _ other _ criminals and thugs.

But.

“Then what the hell happened to your face?”

Pepper had started dabbing at a cut on said face with a filthy cloth, and Tony watched as her sour expression returned. 

“On my way back, I got jumped by two complete _ jackasses. _They got a few good hits in, but I dealt with them, alright? I’m fine, and we have our cards. We’re set.”

There were so many ways that situation could’ve turned out _ not fine, _and the scenarios bounced around in Tony’s head like a ping pong ball. 

He took a deep, steadying breath, and took the cloth from Pepper as if only burdened by her antics, and not terrified by them. “Let me see.”

He cleaned at her face gently and they were both quiet for long minutes, before Tony tried to lighten the mood with,

“Are these jackasses still breathing?”

Pepper smirked up at him. “As if.”

“So, who were they? What did they want? The cards?”

Pepper’s sour expression returned, and her eyes went sharp as shattered glass.

“_ They _were nobody. What matters is who sent them.”

“And who’s that?”

“Hammer.”

Tony blinked. 

“_ Justin _Hammer?”

“Yeah, what other asshole named after a hand tool do we know?”

Tony’s own expression went dark. He turned a threw the cloth onto the counter. “He knows that we’re after him. He thinks he can get us first? Son of a bitch is smart.”

“Oh, no,” Pepper cautioned. “Son of a bitch isn’t that smart enough.”

She leaned towards him as if to tell him a secret, eyes light with dangerous glee.

“I know where he’s hiding.”

“Like hell.”

She sauntered towards the door, turning to smirk at him. “Oh, Tony. You underestimate my skills of…_ persuasion.” _

_ Jesus. She probably threatened to cut those poor bastards who’d attacked her’s balls off. _

He didn’t doubt that she’d followed through on that threat.

Tony steeled himself. “So where are we going?”

Pepper continued to smirk. “Old warehouse in Area 5. Better hurry though. Assholes with a threat looming over them are skittish, you know.”

“Well, he won’t have to deal with that threat looming ahead for too long. I say we serve it right up to him.”

“And then some.”

  
  
  
  


Tony hated fucking quarintine zones. Always had. They smelled like shit and garbage, the people were always on edge, and soldiers commandeered everything. It was like a prison.

But he’d long since had time to get used to it. 

He and Pepper lived close to checkpoint 5, but it was already late. Curfew was at 5 o’clock sharp, and getting caught out past curfew was certain to put you in a world of hurt. 

They had to hurry.

The sound speakers crackled to life.

_ “Attention. All citizens are required to carry an ID at all times. Compliance with all city personnel is mandatory.” _

God, he hated that fucking announcement lady. 

“Look.” Pepper stopped across the street from the distribution center as they stepped out of the alley. 

Soldiers stood idle inside the closed gates, guns held loosely. But it was ration day, so why…?

“The ration lines haven’t opened yet. Must be running low again.” He answered his own foolish question.

_ What’s the point of ration cards if there’s no rations? _

It was an age old question in any quarantine zone. 

He and Pepper continue to walk. 

“I hear it’s another half ration week.” Pepper grumbled.

“Are you fucking kidding me? That’s three weeks in a row.”

They kept their voices low.

“I bet those uniforms who serve rations- I bet they don’t get half rations.”

“Yeah, no shit—”

Their conversation is halted when two soldiers in white hazmat suits drag four people out of a condemned building behind a blockade and shove them to their knees.

“Here we go.” Tony mutters it grimly. “Looks like they found more stragglers.”

He watches as the soldiers move behind each of the kneeling civilians, one aiming his gun and the other pressing the cordyceps reader to the backs of their heads and waiting for the tell tale beep of confirmation as to whether the person is clean— or infected. 

The first two are clean, but when the soldiers reach the third, a small woman in plaid, and check her, they step back and tense up. “We’ve got a live one.”

_ Shit. _

They shoved her to the ground as she struggles and pleads with them. “I’m not infected—I’m not, please!”

But it’s pointless. They press their heavy boots into her back as a uniform runs up and injects her with the killing agent, the same shit they used to use to put down criminals on death row, into the back of her neck. 

She stops pleading and starts convulsing, the sounds of gurgling and choking reminiscent of the monster she would’ve become. Then she stills, and the soldiers move to the fourth civilian as if nothing happened. _ They do this shit everyday. _

The last victim must have been infected too— except he didn’t wanna die by lethal injection. 

He reaches back and smacks the reader from the soldiers hand, and makes a half-hearted attempt at running.

He even made it out of the blockade before he’s mowed by bullets to the back. 

Pepper and Tony start to move as blood pools under the poor bastards body.

Pepper sighed. “Seems like more people are getting infected.”

“That just means more people are sneaking out. Fuck.” He curses, “It won’t be long before they discover our way out, you know.” _ Or catch us in the act of going in or out. Then it would be over. _

“But they haven’t today. We’ll deal with it when it happens.”

Tony scoffed. “I’d give 10 rations cards for your optimism.”

“I’m the one with a pocket full of ‘em buddy. And it’s not optimism. I only have the capacity to deal with one shit-show or problem at a time. And right now, that problem is Hammer. Let’s go through the checkpoint.”

They handed their ID’s to the soldier on duty once they stepped into what was seemingly a metal cage. _ We’re all in cages. _

The soldier inspected their ID’s as an armoured truck drove through the checkpoint in the shuttle beside them, and questioned, “What’s your business here?”

“Visiting a friend.” Pepper’s voice was pleasant again. 

“Alright, move through.” The soldier stepped aside and Tony and Pepper started forward.

There was a violent sound and rush of pressure, and Tony and Pepper were knocked back and Nearly off their feet. The gate slammed shut, and the guards were yelling and shooting. 

The truck that had drove had been bombed. 

The soldiers were yelling. 

_ “FUCK—” _

_ “Get out of here, GO!” _

_ “Close the gates—” _

_ “ _ ** _AVENGERS_ ** _ —!” _

_ “Fucking shoot them!” _

Pepper yanked at his arm. “Tony, let’s go! Fucking move!”

And they were running back in the direction they came, cutting past a blockade and into a familiar condemned building while all the soldiers were scattering and distracted.

Once inside, they stopped to catch their breath.

“Fucking hell.” Pepper seethed. “So much for the easy fucking route.”

Tony stood up to his full height from where’d he’d been resting his hands on his knees. 

“Thanks to that little stunt, they’re gonna close all the checkpoints. We’re gonna have to go around.”

They locked eyes. That meant going outside. 

They’d been outside this wall and many others dozens of times. In fact, getting in and out of the quarantine zone was how they survived the quarantine zone. 

But each and every time was a gamble. There weren’t many infected around the zones— there were soldiers sent out everyday to kill any getting to close. And not just infected, but civilians too. The zones were shit, but it was better than surviving on your own out there. But getting into the zone was like the immigration process used to be— way more difficult and drawn out than it had the right to be. Not to mention the majority of zones had already reached their population limit. It was all just a fucking mess.

And there might not be many infected, but those creepy bastards can always slip by. After all, they destroyed society and humanity as it had been. They had to be pretty fucking resilient to do that.

One of Pepper’s many intel rats scrambled out of the shadows towards them. 

“Hey— hey Pepper, did you see that crazy shit?”

They continued to walk, Tony slightly behind, and the rat fell in step with them.

“Yeah, I was there. Hey, I’m looking for Justin Hammer, know anything about him? Have you seen him?”

The filthy dude scoffed. “You too?”

Pepper’s voice sharpened, and Tony knew her eyes were laser sharp too, even without seeing them. “Yeah...Is someone else looking for him?”

The rat shuffled nervously. “Uh, yeah. Steve.”

Pepper blinked. “Steve? _ Rogers? _What the hell do the Avengers want with Hammer?”

“I dunno, he’s just been asking around for ‘im. Didn’t tell me nothin’”

“What did you tell him?” Tony spoke up.

“The truth. I got no clue where he is.”

“Good boy. Stay inside okay? The military’s jumpy.”

“You got it.”

He fell back, and Tony and Pepper continued on, turning a corner in the dilapidated, dimly lit building. 

‘“Steve wants Hammer? That can’t be good.”

“Yeah, I don’t like it. We need to find him first.”

They broke off into a large, naturally lit room with trash and beer bottles scattered everywhere. In the corner, a tunnel guard sat on a disgusting couch near a broken TV on a large TV stand.

“Hey, Carlos. How’s looking?” Pepper asked the guard. 

“ ‘S been quiet. No noise from the military or infected.”

“Sounds heavenly. Let’s get going Tony. Help me move this.”

They pushed the heavy TV stand to the far side to reveal a large hole in the brick wall. 

“Take it easy out there. Be careful.” Were the parting words from the guard.

Pepper jumped down into the dark hole without preamble, and Tony followed after readying himself for the none-to-short fall down into the dark, filthy tunnel. 

“Christ, this place reeks. Let’s grab our gear and get out quick.” 

After collecting their backpacks, which contained their guns, gas masks, and first aid kits, they set out for the outside.

The short jaunt through the dark, damp, hand-tug tunnel was always Tony’s least favorite part, and he counted the seconds until the hole to the outside, covered by a fallen door. 

Pushing that aside and jumping out into his first breath of outside air in what felt like years was goddamn _ electrifying. _

In reality, he’s breathed this same air not a month ago, on an outside smuggling job. But even a short time in the zone was too much time. He didn’t know how the poor, law-abiding bastards who hadn’t seen the outside since they’d stepped into the zone survived. 

The exit from the tunnel dug into an old Mexican restaurant, with red and green decorations and colorful sombreros still hung on the wall. God, he missed Mexican food. And fresh food in general. But particularly casadillas. He could barely remember what they tasted like anymore.

“Haven’t been out in a while. Too long” Tony said as he and Pepper exited the restaurant and stepped out into the overgrown lot. 

“Yep. I missed the outside.” She stopped in front of a large crater in the concrete filled with water, no doubt created by one of the bombs the military had dropped a dozen or more years ago, and turned to grin at him playfully. “Kinda romantic isn’t it?”

“I _ am _ the romantic type.”

“Uh huh.”

“I am!” 

He wasn’t.

“You have your moments.” She said, and continued on. 

After a quick search for the ladder the other dimwits _ never _ left in the same place, they made their way into yet another crumbling building, and picked their way to the basement, discussing the shipment of merchandise they were picking up from Happy soon.

“Hold up.” Pepper stumbled to a halt at the end of a hallway, reaching for the gas mask clipped to her back pack. “Spores.”

_ Fuck. _

They adjusted their masks onto their faces.

The fucking infected, the fucking fungal parasite in their brain, did everything it could to infect more hosts even after it’s own host’s death. When an infected dies, it starts to decay and turn into mounds of the fungus, from which sprout the disgusting, flower-like spouts that gave off the spores. Breathing them meant infection. So, masks.

“Where the fuck are spores coming from? Place was clear last time.”

“They’re coming out of something.”

At the end of a short crawl space lay the culprit, a relatively fresh infected body.

Pepper cursed. “The body isn’t very old. Stay alert.”

Tony nodded, then surveyed the spore-filled area, his light shining through the floating green fuckers. “There.” He spotted a blocked doorway with enough space to squeeze through.

He went first, easing through the debris and into the next room, some sort of office space. 

He nearly jumped out of skin when something grasped his ankle.

He jerked away, reaching for Pepper to pull her away, until he looked down and saw what had grabbed him.

A man, pinned beneath a large filing cabinet, gasping and wheezing and sick.

_ He’s infected. Not far off from losing his mind to it, too. _

“Please.” The guy wheezed, reaching up for Tony. “My- My mask broke. Please. Please don’t let me...I- I don’t want to turn. Please.”

What the poor bastard wanted was a no brainer.

Pulling out his pistol and ending the guy’s suffering with a point blank bullet to the head was a no brainer too.

_ Shit, though. Down one bullet. _

They scrounged around for anything useful for several minutes, advancing through the building cautiously before finally being halted by the dreaded sounds of frantic infected.

They instinctively moved to cover, quiet as they could, on each side of an open doorway, and Tony closed his eyes and focused his hearing. By the sounds of it, there were three runners, one inside the room, directly in front of the doorway, and two more a bit further down that were making the aggressive, yet almost contented sounds of demolishing prey. 

“Three.” He mouthed to Pepper.

She raised her eyebrows to say, “How do you wanna play this?”

He worked through it in his head. 

He could take the first one quietly, no problem. But the other two were impossible to stealth, you couldn’t get to one without instantly alerting the other.

He held up a hand to Pepper, and moved, crouched, inching his way closer to the back of the hunched, moaning runner.

Like lightning, he shot up, grabbed the thing around the neck, and put all of his strength into snapping the bone. 

Snapping the neck cut the brain off from the body, essentially killing the infected. 

There was no fuss, besides the slight squealing from the infected.

Tony laid the body down, then backed back into the hallway, and stood up.

He looked to Pepper as he raised his pistol, who nodded at him.

_ It’s a waste of another bullet, but it’s safer this way. _

He shot into the other room at nothing.

Instantly, the infected were up and pounding towards them, screaming they’re glee at the prospect of more prey.

Tony kept his gun trained at the doorway, and waited for the first shadowy figure to appear.

When he did, he fired into it once, waited as the infected snapped back, then shot again as it tried to continue forward. The second infected ran out of the door towards Pepper. A third bullet and the first was down.

He whirled towards the other one, and caught Pepper bitch slapping the thing to snap it backwards, then raising her weapon and firing two close range shots into the thing’s chest, and another final shot into it’s it’s as it fell. 

And it was done. 

“That’s all of them.” He breathed.

“For now.”

They continued on up a flight of stairs where they found a note some poor bastard had written to his brother in the zone, telling how in their attempt to sneak in, they’d ran into the building to escape soldiers and hadn't noticed the spores until it was too late. That’s who they’d been fighting.

“As bad as the zones are,” Pepper said solemnly, “there are all these poor people who wish they were living on the inside.”

_ Yeah. It’s all a lose-lose situation. That’s the apocalypse for you. _

Tony said nothing. There was nothing to say.

Finally, they made it back to the outside, and removed the sweaty masks.

They crossed through a collapsing warehouse and into another building before they finally made it to the second secret entrance point of the zone.

Pepper gave a young, dirty, boy a few ration cards to scope the place out for soldiers Hammer’s men before they entered the village-like atmosphere of the zone slums.

Tony knew that traveling through here would have been a lot harder if Pepper wasn’t there. To these people, who Pepper had helped feed and clothe and reunite with family members, (also mixed with the one’s she’d scared the shit out of in some no doubt deadly way) she was like a god.

Once they’d made it through the makeshift booths selling everything fried rat to guard dogs to ratty blankets, they met yet another of Pepper’s rats at the gate.

Pepper wordlessly held up ration cards. “Hammer. He come through here?”

The rat tilted his head. “Half-hour ago. Went back to the wharf. Hasn’t come back.”

Pepper nodded as the cards exchanged hands.

‘Let’s go get our shit.

The alleyway was covered in spray painted ** _A_ **’s and other’s Avenger’s propaganda, including Steve’s symbol, two circles with a star in the middle, done in red, white and blue spray paint. All American anarchy. The end of the decorated alley opened up to a wide concrete clearing where three Hammer goons waited.

The thugs grouped together as they approached, an obvious stand off against Pepper and Tony.

The leader goon didn’t fuck around.

“Turn around and go back to wherever the fuck you came from."

Pepper tilted her head and pretended to mull it over. She hissed through her teeth. “Ooh, see, I can’t exactly do that. But look, this has nothing to do with you guys, ya know? We just want Hammer. This doesn’t have to be ugly.”

The goon apparently didn’t agree. “Bitch, I will bash your pretty little head in if you don’t turn the fuck around right now.”

There was a beat of silence while looked Pepper over at Tony, then back to the men. 

She sighed, “Fuck this.” before putting a bullet in the sneering guy’s brain. 

Then the rest of the shooting started. 

The sorry sons of bitches went down quickly, as did the rest of the seemingly endless men Hammer seemed to have on his invisible payroll. _Idiots._ The guy was flat broke and the only people who didn’t know it were the one’s working for him.

They found Hammer himself hiding out in his office and, after a few shots fired (which no doubt pissed Pepper off) and a brief chase, cornered him in an alley.

“Well, well, well.” Pepper taunted to Hammer’s turned back. “Hello, Justin.”

Hammer turned slowly, his squirrly expression transformed to a charming one, though the fear was underneath.

“Pepper. Tony. You two are looking scrumptious today. I made the right decision to make you

chase me, I see. You know I love to see a sweaty Tony Stark anyday”

Pepper smirked and Tony rolled his eyes. 

“Well, Hammer, it _ can _ be arranged that Tony’s sexy, winded self be the very last thing you see.” The threat was, yet again, in how pleasant Pepper’s voice was.

Hammer swallowed hard, and his eyes darted back and forth, looking for an exit. Pepper bent down and slowly picked up a metal pipe. Tony stood by idly, waiting.

“I- uh- may have some conditions when it comes to that.” Hammer stuttered out before he darted forward, trying to bypass Pepper, but got a pipe to the shins for his trouble. He landed hard, cursing and groaning. Pepper began to circle him like a calculating lioness. Tony stayed where he was. 

“Look— look, Pepper, whatever you’ve heard, it isn’t true, I—”

“I don’t care about your excuses. Our guns, Hammer. Where are they?”

“I— I know where they are, I just...well, it’s— it’s complicated, alright?”

Pepper looked at Tony. _Permission to enter her show_. He started forward.

“I just need—!”

Hammer was interrupted by Tony’s boot in his face, and Tony had a knee in his back before he could recover, gripping his arm and pulling it back just before the breaking point.

Hammer sputtered and gasped for few moments, then managed to grin up at Tony with bloody teeth. 

“Just like old times, huh, baby? You pinning me down? I got some pretty hot memories—”

Tony twisted his arm and pulled until Hammer screamed.

“Okay! Okay! _ Agh, stop! _”

“The guns, Hammer. Quit jerking us off.” Pepper jumped back in.

Tony twisted his arm just a little more before Hammer could make another clever quip about the “jerking off” comment.

“I…..I sold them.”

A beat.

“_ Excuse me? _”

“I didn’t have a choice, I owed them—”

“You owed _ us, _Justin.”

“I just need some—”

“Who has our guns?”

“.......It...It’s the Avengers. I owed the Avengers, okay? But— but look, okay, they are basically all dead, I’m telling you, the military has been wiping them out. We can just— just rush in there and finish them off, ya know? And you can get your guns back? No hard feelings, for old times sake? What do you say?”

Tony released Hammer’s arm and stood up just as Pepper did. They glanced at each other.

Hammer stared up at them, hope glimmering.

“That,” Pepper started, “is a stupid fucking idea.” And shot him between the eyes.

And that was the end of Justin Hammer.

“So, what now?” Tony questioned, releasing a sigh. This was turning out to be a long ass day.

“Hold on a sec.” Pepper said, a light of teasing in her voice despite the news they’d just gotten.

“What?”

“_‘Just like old times, baby?’ ‘I got some hot memories’_? What was _ that _ all about? _Tony!_” She gasped at him, doing her best _scandalized_ expression. Which was annoyingly convincing. “Did you used to _fuck_Justin Hammer?”

Tony felt his face and neck start to burn, and he couldn’t look Pepper in the eye. 

“_ No! _ Not— not _ really _.”

Pepper burst out laughing.

“It was only a few times! As a trade! Back when he was a prostitute, you remember!”

“Jesus, I just— just never took for the type. Prostitutes, sure. But _ him?” _She was struggling to breath she was laughing so hard.

“Shut up, Pep. What are we gonna do about the guns?” He pushed, in a desperate attempt to change the subject. 

Pepper consoled herself. “Okay, first, we are _ definitely _ talking about that later. Second, it’s pretty simple. We get em’ back.”

Tony blinked blankly at her. “Get them back? How in the hell are we supposed to do _ that?” _

“I don’t know, we just— explain it to them or something. Look, let’s just— let’s go find an Avenger.”

_ “You’re not gonna have to look very hard.” _

They turned towards the voice, and out of the shadows appeared Steve Rogers himself, holding a gun in one hand, the other pressed to his bleeding side.

“Well,” Tony said, “There you go. King Avenger.”

Steve scoffed, stepping further into the alley so that the glint of light through the fence above them shined on his blonde hair and pale skin. “What are you two doing here?” He sounded exasperated. 

“Business.” Was Pepper’s vague response.

Steve sighed, and his eyes flickered to Hammer.

“I needed him alive, you know.”

Pepper ignored him. “Those guns he gave you weren’t his to sell. I want them back.”

Steve looked as if he couldn’t decide whether he wanted to sigh or scoff again. 

“Doesn’t work like that, Pep, and you know it. If you want those guns back...you gotta earn them.”

Pepper and Tony locked eyes before Pepper spoke again.

“How many ration cards do you—”

“I don’t give a damn about ration cards.”

There was a moment of silence as he let that sink in.

“I need something smuggled out of the city.”

More silence.

“You do that for me, I’ll get you your guns back, and then some. But I need this job done.”

Tony decided to speak.

“How do we know you even have them? Apparently,” he advanced on Rogers, stepping closer but not quite getting his face, “The military has been wiping you guys out.”

Steve looked away and closed his eyes briefly. “Yeah, you’re right about that. Look, I’ll show you the weapons—”

Just then, the sound of soldiers speaking and radio static could be heard in the distance.

Rogers perked up like he’d been electrocuted. 

“I’ve got to go, what’s it gonna be?”

Tony looked to Pepper.

“I wanna see those guns.” She decided.

Escaping the soldier’s detection was child’s play, especially with Steve’s shortcuts.

Once there was a moment to breathe, Tony questioned Steve. “So what’s happening? Are things really as bad for the Avengers as the military are making it seem?”

Steve looks burdened by more than just his wound.

“Yes. And no. The sector I’m in charge of has been planning on leaving the city, but we need a distraction and they need a scapegoat. So we fight. And they’ve been pushing hard. Despite that, it’s a mutually beneficial situation we have going on, even if they don’t know it.”

Tony hummed. “Smart.”

Steve shook his head. “Survival. You know about it.”

_ Yeah, I do. _

They had to sneak past a small patrol, but it was easy and over quickly and soon they were hidden once more.

The announcement lady returned to inform them that curfew was now in affect.

Pepper huffed. “Where are we going, Steve?”

Steve drew a shaky breath, looking ready to collapse. “This way, it’s just up here.”

He directed them to what looked to be an old communal kitchen in the warehouse Steve had led them into. 

He gestured to a rusted metal door.

“Tony, gimme a hand with this.”

They both pressed their weight against it while Tony twisted the handle. The door shrieked, then gave way. 

Steve collapsed into the room as the door fell open. 

“Jesus, Rogers. We’re here now, quit your fainting—”

_ “Get away from him!” _

Tony’s instincts warned him of the incoming attack before he actually saw his attacker, and he whirled away from Steve, arms at the ready, just in time to see the glint of a small knife and brown curls on the head of what had to be a ridiculously short man, _ or woman, from the pitch of the voice, _before Pepper barreled in and caught the attacker’s knife hand, jerking it away. 

“Let him go.” Steve said it calmly, but in a commanding enough voice that it had Tony turning back to look at him as he pulled himself up with the edge of a counter, blood covering his entire right side.

“Oh man, oh man.” Tony heard, and then something Tony hadn’t seen up close for a long time ran from behind him to Steve’s side and said, “What happened?”

_ It was a kid. _

_ A teenage kid. _

Teenagers were relatively scarce nowadays. People had only started to want to bring kids into a world like this recently. This kid looked about fourteen, and fourteen years ago having children would have been unheard of. Should’ve been, but people weren’t always careful. 

Hence this short, thin boy with a mop of brown curls currently fussing over Steve like a nervous hen.

_ A short, skinny, fourteen-year-old boy with lots of brown hair. _

Tony felt sick. 

_ Just push it down. Don’t be stupid. It’s a kid but it’s not your kid. It’s fine. _

“Recruiting a bit young, aren’t you, Rogers?” Pepper snarked, watching the boy.

Steve looked disturbed. “Peter is _not_ an Avenger.”

”_Steve!"_ the boy - _Peter, apparently_ \- urged. “What happened?”

Steve waved a hand. “Nothing, don’t worry about it, this is fixable.”

Peter eyed Pepper and Tony suspiciously, as if he had something to fear when _he’d_ been the one to come at them with a knife.

"And who are they?"

“Help.” Was Steve’s mysterious answer. “But…..I can’t come with you.”

The boy’s expression was so wrecked with nerves and distress that it almost tugged at Tony’s chest. _Almost._

“Well, then I’m not going—”

“_Peter._ Don’t start, okay? We won’t get another shot at this.”

It hit Tony then. “Wait a minute— we’re smuggling _him?"_

Steve did that thing where he looked burdened again. “There’s a group of Avengers that’ll meet you at the Capitol building. They’ll be there to take him off your hands. You take him, come back, the weapons are all yours, _double_ what Hammer promised you.”

Pepper looked at him like he was mad. “That’s not exactly a close or easy place to get to, Rogers.”

“How many drops have you made for me in the past? You’re capable.”

_ Capable. Right. _

“And speaking of our guns, where are they?” Tony broke in.

“Back at camp.”

Pepper and Tony shared a look, and Pepper scoffed with her entire body. “We aren’t smuggling fuck-all until I see them.”

Steve pushed himself off the counter and stood on his own feet, swaying slightly. Peter held out his hands as if to catch him should do that fainting thing again. 

“Fine. You follow me back to town, I’ll get patched up, you can verify the merchandise.” He gestured to Peter, who was still watching him like a nervous puppy. “But he’s not crossing into that part of town, and I don’t like leaving him alone at night.”

He looked up. “I want Tony to watch over him."

“Goddamn it, Rogers, I am not a fucking babysitter—”

“Bullshit, Steve! I’m not staying with hi—”

“_Peter!_” The boy huffed at Steve’s admonishment, but shut up.

But only for a second.

“How do you know them?”

“I was a friend of Tony brother James. And James told me once that If was I was ever in a jam...I could count on Tony.”

Tony tensed at the mention of Rhodey’s name.

“Was that before or after he went out with the wind on your little militia group?”

“Doesn’t matter. His word is his word. And he left you, too.”

Tony brooded. As hard as he could.

“Fine, okay, whatever.” Pepper spoke up. “Tony, just— take him to the east tunnel and wait for me there. 

Tony was gobsmacked. ”what? Pepper—”

“It’s just cargo, Tony.” The look she gave him told him she knew exactly why he was so hesitent.

_ Just...Push it back. _

Behind them, Steve was speaking softly to the boy, his hands on his shoulders. “It’s alright. I trust them, I know they’ll keep you safe. Everything’s gonna be okay.”

Tony could see that boy was trembling slightly, and trying his hardest to hide it.Tony couldn’t exactly blame the kid for being scared. He he was being sent off on a dangerous, illegal journey to very much prohibited areas with a couple of brash strangers to be handed off to more strangers.

It had to be tough. He was just a little kid, just a scared boy—

_Fuck. FUCK._ It was already happening. That stupid empathy thing that he could never control.

Tony decided he wanted this over with as soon as possible.

“It’s getting dark, let’s get a fucking move on. You better keep up, kid. I am _not_ slowing down for you.

The look the boy sent him was dirtier than the underground tunnels.

_ That’s right. Hate me. It’ll make things easier for everyone. _

Tony sighed for the millionth time that day. He really didn’t have the patience for this bullshit.

But fuck if he had a choice. _Goddamn it._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you liked it!!! I like this chapter better than the first. follow me on twitter for updates @nicowalkrs. I tweet about tom holland and almost nothing else


	3. One Step at a Time

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the feel are here guys

The journey to the tunnel was short, and not as tense he’d thought it would be.

Without his worry for Steve making him lose his head, Peter seemed a lot lighter and more willing to be friendly.

To bad Tony wouldn’t let him be friendly.

Anytime the kid tried to make idle conversation, Tony shut him down with terse, one word responses, even going as far to insult the boy to try and get him to snap back. He didn’t talk to the kid beyond directing him as to where to go and telling him to duck away from military patrol lights.

Some dark, scared part of Tony wanted to get a rise out this kid, wanted him to blow up and tell him straight up what a miserable bastard he was.

Tony lived for validation.

But Peter absolutely  _ refused _ to accommodate him. 

The kid displayed an impressive amount of flippant apathy to Tony’s nasty attitude, and continued on with his dorky commentary.

Then they reached the aftermath sight of a battle between the military and the Avengers. One of which the soldiers had definitely won.

The boy stared at the bodies littering the ground, staining it with blood. He just stared with a slightly disturbed look in his eyes, not nearly as bothered as he should have been. He no longer looked quite as apathetic as he had, but violent death was a common occurrence in this life. Children who were born into it were no longer shocked by it. They couldn’t afford to be.

But that didn’t mean the gentle ones like, Tony had to admit, Peter seemed to be weren’t still affected by it.

“W-whoa, I-- I heard the shooting while Steve was gone, but...What happened?”

The soft, childish question was directed at him. It did things to him. Began to stir long dead instincts.  _ Jesus. Why me? I can’t handle this. I’m too weak _ .

“It’s the Avengers and the military. They’re fighting. The Avenger’s....lost this one.” It didn’t come out as biting as he’d meant it to. 

Peter nodded solemnly, and they continued on. 

5 minutes later, Peter spoke up again, just as they’d entered the building connected to the tunnel.

“So, this tunnel.”

“Mmm.”

“You use it to smuggle things?”

“Mmhmm”

“Like...illegal things?”

Tony sighed. “Sometimes.”

“You ever smuggle a kid before?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

Tony broke.

“Why-- because it’s not normal, that’s why.”

“Seems pretty normal to me.”

“Literally how is that normal to you? Do you get smuggled _often_?”

“No, this is a first. But I imagine people smuggle people all the time.”

“Do you now? In my day, that was known as human trafficking.”

“Trafficking? What’s trafficking? And how do you do it to humans?”

“Literally like this. I am currently trafficking you to a secret underground tunnel. Except it’s usually way less pleasant than it is for you right now.”

“Being around you is _ not _ my idea of pleasant, dude. You’re kind of a jackass.”

_ And you’re kind of a smart ass. _ The comeback was on the tip of his tongue, but he’d already played into the kid’s tactic to get him to talk and refused to continue to rise to the bait.  _ Goddamn it. I’ve been alone with him for 20 minutes and he’s already manipulating me. _

“Shut the fuck up, kid. We’re here.” He stopped at the end of the hall and opened the grungy door to the small, dirty apartment that had a great resemblance to his own living space. He left the door open for Peter to close, flopped down onto the moth-eaten couch and closed his eyes, effectively shutting Peter out. 

The kid didn’t take the hint. 

“What are you doing?”

“Killing time.”

“What am I supposed to do?”

“Go sit in a corner or something.”

He kept his eyes closed throughout the annoying conversation and all through Peter’s grumbling and cursing as he stalked past the coach. 

“Your watch is broken.” It was almost an accusation, spoken in the snarky, annoyed teenage voice.

It felt like a searing knife to the abdomen.

_ Fucking punk. Fucking punk that already makes me think of Harley just by existing has no right to remind me of him even more. _

Tony forced the burning down and himself into sleep.

  
  
  
  
  
  


The night the watch had broken Tony had cried and cried and cried until he’d puked and when he had it had been bloody. Some asshole had come at him with a pipe over half-a ration card, years ago when rations had been plentiful and enjoyable. 

Tony knew he shouldn’t wear it. There was too much that could happen to such an old, delicate watch in everyday life from before, much less the fucking apocalypse. 

But he couldn’t take it off. He just  _ couldn’t. _ It was a part of him now. 

Tony had long since learned every single scratch and groove and mark on the thing from how much he used to stare at it.

He’d never  _ not  _ noticed that it still had Harley’s blood dried in the lines of the glass face.

It wouldn’t clean off no matter how hard he scrubbed.

And he’d  _ scrubbed. _

He’d gone at it with soap and water, with bleach. He’d picked at it with toothpicks. But never get rid of all of it. 

If he let it take over too much, stared too long at the blood in those lines, think of the implications of it, he’d have the same dream every time.

He’d be standing in the middle of Natasha’s Bar. Rhodey would see him, scoff at him, and then turn and_ leave_ him. He’d be surrounded by infected people he knew, all desperate for a bite of him. Neighbors, colleagues from work, his parents. Pepper.

Never Harley, though. Harley was never in the dream. At least, not his body.

But Tony’s evil ass subconscious wasn’t gonna let him off easy when it came to Harley.

No. In that reoccurring dream, among others, Tony was alone, surrounded by dead loved ones, and covered head to toe in what he just  _ knew  _ was every single drop of blood in Harley’s missing body.

Sticky, thick, suffocating, metallic red blood.

_ His bambino’s blood. _

Which only seemed to entice the infected who inevitably would attack and devour him at the end even more.

  
  
  
  


“You talk in your sleep.”

Tony had been blinking awake when Peter spoke, prompting him to turn and observe the boy, who had dragged an old cushioned chair in front of the window, where he was sitting and watching the rivulets of water run down the window, his form and face illuminated by the light of the moon and the patrol lights. 

Peter turned to look at him, casting one side of his face into dark shadows, which matched the look in eyes.

“I hate bad dreams.”

Tony didn’t know what else to say besides, “Me too.” At least it was the truth.

The soft pattering sound of rain surrounded Tony as he rose to walk up behind Peter, gaze out into the darkness beyond the wall, where they were headed, then turned to light a candle on a small end table, illuminating the room.

“You know, this is the closest I’ve ever been. To the outside, I mean.”  Peter turned his body in the big chair to face him. “It can’t be any worse out there. Can it?”

_ Oh, kiddo. _

Tony deflected. “So, what’s the deal with you and Steve?”

Peter looks back out the window, young face struggling to maintain a blank expression. “I don’t know. He’s….my friend, I guess.”

Tony scoffed at him, utterly baffled. “You’re  _ friends _ with the leader of the Avenger’s? What are you, like twelve?”

Peter rolled his eyes dramatically. “He knew my father, okay? And I’m  _ fourteen,  _ not that that has anything to with  _ anything. _

_ On, the contrary, kid, that has everything to with  _ ** _everything._ **

Fourteen. Of course he was fucking fourteen. Nothing could be easy.

_ Push it down. _

There was no evidence to his train of thought in his voice when Tony spoke, just sarcasm.

“So, does that mean you’re some big wig’s son? Is that how you’re important enough to warrant being held and smuggled by the Avengers? I was beginning to wonder. There’s no real outside indicators of you too being special.”

The words were meant to be dismissive, and to bite.  _ Finally. _

Peter blinked up at him, looking young and conflicted and a little hurt.

“I-- um-- I don’t…..I’m not supposed to tell you why you’re smuggling me, if that’s what you’re trying to get. You’re not supposed to know.”

The boy’s stuttering, quiet voice made Tony want shrivel up. He’d  _ meant  _ to hurt him, he wants to make the boy angry at him and uncomfortable around him, so the kid would making clever quips that make Tony want to play along and quip back, or saying adorably dorky things that make Tony want to hug him or something equally as repulsive.

Tony could not believe what was running through his mind right now. He hadn’t hugged anyone in eight years. Not since Rhodey.

He was not about break that streak with this scrawny pickled pepper picker.

So Tony steeled himself against the boy’s young, heart-wrenching expression he was currently sporting as he forced himself to look anywhere but Tony. “Whatever kid.” He crossed his arms. “The best thing about my job is that I don’t  _ have  _ to know. I just have to get it done. So keep all the secrets you want. Won’t effect me in the long run.”

But he was kidding himself. He desperately wanted know what made this boy important to the Avengers.There was absolutely no reason for the militia group to be harboring some child and needing him smuggled into the outside bad enough that Steve would readily give up much needed weapons to make it happen, if he wasn’t special in some way. Most likely though, the kid just had big wig Avengers parents or something.

Speaking of which. 

“Where are your parents?”

_ He shouldn’t be without parents.  _

Peter took a long moment to answer, seemingly still pouting about being called “not special.”

Then he sighed the sigh of someone much older than him. “Where are anyone's parents? Or brothers or sisters or kids? They’ve been gone a long time. I grew up in HYDRA academy. I don’t even remember them.”

HYDRA academy. The military school where they took orphaned or abandoned kids and made them into solders and trained them to kill, Avengers and infected and civilians alike. 

_ Oh, no. This kid isn’t cut out for that. _

“So why are’t you there now? At HYDRA?”

Peter straightened his shoulders ad his face took on the stubborn look of a bull.

“Getting into territory of the thing I’m not supposed to tell you, Tony.”

It was the first time Peter had said his name.

And _shit. _Jesus _Christ._

Whenever Harley was feeling particularly snarky or just wanted to get a playful rise of of his father, he’d call him Tony. He continued to use it cause Uncle Rhodey had found it absolutely hilarious. It had happened so often and the joke had carried so long, that it sort of stuck.

“Tony” and “Dad” had become almost interchangeable to his son. 

_ “You’re an engineer but you can’t help me with my robotics homework cause you don’t understand it? Makes sense, Tony. Maybe I should tell your boss you can’t do 7th grade wiring worksheets--” _

_ “You forgot milk AGAIN? Honestly, Tony, we really need to get you checked for Alzheimer’s. I’m getting worried.” _

A red and gold father’s day card flashed in his mind, the words “ _ father”  _ and “ _ Dad”  _ painted over and crudely replaced with “ _ Tony”  _ so it read  _ “Happy Tony’s Day, Tony!! To the BEST Tony ever!! _

Next flashed his custom mug had Harley got him for his birthday one year.  _ “World’s Best Tony.” _

This was not going to work. 

“Mr. Stark.” Tony blurted stiffly without even thinking about it.

Peter scrunched his face up.  _ Fucking cute. Stop. _

“What?”

Tony swallowed and decided to role with it. “Stark is my last name. You call me Mr. Stark.” His voice was hard with panic.

Peter blinked at him dumbly. “Y-you want me to call you  _ mister?  _ I thought all that shit went out the door, with, you know, the rest of society’s weird quirks. I read about it in books. Do you want me to call you  _ sir,  _ too, to complete--

_ “Just fucking do it, you dumbass kid!” _

Tony’s voice boomed, so unnecessarily loud and blisteringly angry he scared himself, much less Peter, who jumped back in his chair, eyes wide and filling with shock and fear. His cheeks paled, then flushed bright red. 

He slid his legs into the chair under him and curled in on himself, looking down at his thighs quickly.

“_Okay_, whatever, I…..Okay.”

_ Christ. Jesus Fucking Christ. _

This was horrible idea.

Before Tony could wrap his mind around jumping down the kid’s throat and scaring him and  _ just what exactly was fucking wrong with him he’s just a KID--  _ Pepper whirled into the room.

“Hey, sorry it took so long, soldiers fucking everywhere--”

She stopped, sensing the tension in the room, noticing the shock and slight horror on Tony face, and the shame and uncertainty on Peter’s.

_ This is gonna be one long smuggling job,  _ Tony could practically see her thinking. He wholeheartedly agreed.

“Okay, whatever weird shit is happening between you two, put it away. We don’t have time for it.”

_ Ever the tactful mediator is Pepper. _

“How’s Steve?” Peter’s voice is quiet but strong, demanding an answer.

“He’ll live.” Pepper gives him, and turns to Tony with an excited gleam in her eye. 

“He showed me the weapons. It’s a lot.” She tilted her head at him.  _ Trying to read him.  _

“You wanna do this? Cause I do. It’s well worth it, Tony.”

_ Is it? _

Probably. To her, anyway.

So he shrugged, as if it didn’t matter to him one way or the other. “Yeah.”

“Lets go, Peter. Grab your stuff.”

The boy demurely rose from his chair to collect his backpack he’d brought along. It was red and blue and covered with pins, mainly  _ Star Wars  _ themed. How the hell did someone his age even know about  _ Star Wars? _ Tony figured there had to be DVD”s and ways to play them left  _ somewhere _ .

He sure as hell didn’t watch them Netflix.

The kid avoided Tony eye as they left the room and entered into the foyer of the tunnel entrance.

“Don’t you think its fuckin’ weird that they need  _ us  _ to smuggle the kid?” Tony talked in a hush town to Pepper, but he knew Peter could hear. “He’s obviously important to Steve. Why wouldn’t he get one of the Originals in on it? Or even a grunt, don’t they swear loyalty in the Avenger’s hazing thing or some shit? I know he trusts them.”

Pepper shrugged, glancing out at the windows for patrols. “A lot is happening for them right now, what’s left of the originals are probably busy as hell. Steve wanted to do it himself, but like I said, he’s got too much going on to just up in leave. And he’s lost a lot of men, beggars can’t be choosers.”

“Let’s just hope there’s at least one of them around at the end of this to pay us.”

Pepper rolled her eyes. “There will be.” She assured him.

Tony liked the North tunnel SO much more than the other. It was cleaner, simpler, and it even had a fucking elevator. Don’t ask him who the fuck managed to build  _ that  _ without detection.

As they rode on it down into the tunnel, Tony spoke over the sound of the gears to Pepper. “So who’s waiting for us at the drop point?”

“Steve said there’s a crew of Avengers who’ve traveled all the way from another city.” She turned and sniffed at Peter. “Boy must be important. What’s the deal with you anyway? You and Original’s kid or something?”

Tony’s ears perked up despite himself.

“Uh, no, I’m-- I’m not a firefly. I’m nobody special.”

Tony sighed.

“Uh huh, sure. Could’ve fooled me. But it doesn’t matter, you don’t have to tell us. We don’t need to know.”

“That’s what  _ he _ said.”

Tony sensed Peter gesturing to him. “Well, he’s right.”

Tony smothered the urge to turn around stick his tongue out at the kid. Just barely.

The platform elevator shuddered to a halt at the ground, and they stepped off. Peter spoke again. 

“So how long is all of this gonna take?”

“If all goes to plan, then we should get you to the capitol building by sunrise.” Pepper told him as they ducked and couched through a small tunnel lit by burning red lights.

When the tunnel opened up, Pepper turned to Peter and regarded him seriously. “Listen Peter, when we get out there, there’s gonna be danger around every corner. We could run into infected, soldiers, hunters,  _ anything _ , and they would all want to kill us. Or we could run into nothing and this all go smooth as Country Crock. Either way, I need you to stay as close to us as possible, no matter what, okay? And always do what we say. Can I trust you to do that?”

Peter nodded the affirmative. Then did that cute, face scrunching thing again. “What’s Country Crock?”

“A brand of butter.”

“What’s butter?”

Tony sighed. “Let’s go.”

He climbed the ladder up to the exit to the outside, and carefully lifted the piece of plywood atop it. 

He froze when he saw the silhouettes of soldiers through the crack.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa. Patrol, way ahead.”

He waited until the two had disappeared out of view before he climbed up and beckoned Peter and Pepper to follow. He recovered the tunnel entrance before they set off again.

Peter’s eyes grew wide as rain trickled down his face, which he lifted to the sky for a minute, expression full of wonder.

“Holy  _ shit.  _ I’m actually  _ outside _ .”

Tony felt a pang of remorse knowing that he couldn’t afford to let Peter stop and marvel.

“C’mon kid, keep walking.”

Peter looked at him uncertainly. It was the first thing Tony’d said to him since he’d lost it on the poor kid.

Pepper moved slightly ahead of them, scoping things out, and fell into step slightly behind Tony.

“Mr. Stark?”

It was said so gently and with so much apprehension that Tony didn’t have the heart to anything but answer the kid earnestly. 

“Yeah, kid?”

“What’s butter?”

Tony smothered the instinctive burst of laughter. “It’s, uh, it was a kind of….Paste? Or spread? People would smear it on foods, like bread and corn and it would make it tatse better.”

Tony could tell Peter was scrunching his face again when he said, “That sounds  _ gross.  _ A paste you smear on food?  _ Ew.” _

This time Tony couldn’t hold back his chuckle. _ Damn it, the kid was so fucking cute. _

“I think it’s clear, boys.” Pepper called to them in a hush tone.

They caught up to her where she was standing at the end of an old 18 wheeler trailer. “Through here.”

He went through first, and was so focused on Peter and Pepper’s resounding footsteps, making sure Peter was following closely, that he didn’t hear the soldiers until it was too late. 

As he went to jump down out of the trailer, he was smacked in the face by a soldiers machine gun, knocking him to the ground.

Before he could even process enough to even think, the female soldier had turned her flash light-adorned gun directly in Peter’s face, who’d been right behind him.

The gun pointed at Peter awoke protective instincts really he’d rather forget.

“Don’t try anything stupid.” 

The soldiers voice was harsh under her helmet, and she gestured for Peter and Pepper to jump down as they lifted their hands up in a surrender. Tony’s blood boiled as he got to his feet and carefully raised his own hands.  _ 100 feet. We made it 100 fucking feet from the tunnel. And now Peter’s gonna have this mark on his record in the zone for the rest of his life. Such bullshit. _

A second soldier must have gone around the trailer and entered from the side, as he was behind Peter and Pepper, pistol aimed, as they jumped down. 

“Turn around, on your knees.” The first instructed.

They did so. The woman instructed the man, “You scan them, I’ll call it in.”

“Whatever. I’m sick of this shit. Hands on your heads!”

He pulled out the scanner and pressed it to Pepper’s neck first, waited for the beep of ‘clean’ before moving to Tony. 

“This is Sergeant Ramirez, requesting pick up for three stragglers.” The woman spoke into her radio.  _ Shit. More soldiers. _

Tony looked up at the man as he waited for the scanner to go off. “Look the other way, man.” He tried, “We can make this worth your while.” The scanner beeped.

“Shut up.” The soldier snarled, before moving to Peter.

Tony watched as the scanner was pressed to Peter’s neck. The boy was shaking, but he had a wild look in his eye.

Tony had no time to try and figure out what Peter was planning because the next thing he saw was Peter whipping his knife from the band of his jeans and jamming it into the soldier’s thigh just as the scanner beeped.

The soldier stumbled back, yelling, and before Tony or the female soldier could act Peter was up grappling with him. The soldier punched the boy and sent him to the ground. He raised his pistol at the fallen kid.

Tony took his opportunity to tackle the man, sending them both to the ground in a heap. He saw the other soldier’s flash light wash over him, and he braced himself for the sting and ripping of bullets in his back, but the shots he heard were from a pistol. Pepper’s pistol. The first soldier was down. 

Lightning quick, Tony grabbed for the soldiers pistol and shot the man in the temple with it.

And it was done.

“Oh fuck. Oh _ fuck,  _ I thought-- I thought we were just gonna, like--hold them up or something.”

Peter was breathing heavy with his head in his hands.

Tony would’ve rolled his eyes. But he got it. He understood.

“ _ Holy shit.”  _ From behind him, Pepper curse sounded equal parts astounded and angry as fuck.  _ Not a good sign. _

“Tony, look at this.”

He turned and caught the scanner she threw him, looked down at the screen.

And nearly dropped it.

What the fuck.

_ What the fuck. _

He slowly raised his eyes to Pepper, who looked grim. And pissed. 

“Steve set us up?”

Without waiting for an answer, he rounded on Peter.

_ Peter.  _

Peter, who was too much Harley for Tony’s peace of mind. Peter, who hated bad dreams and didn't know what butter was and somehow liked  _ Star Wars _ . Peter, who looked adorable when he scrunched his face up. Peter, who he'd known for three hours and who was already under his skin. Peter.....Who was  _ infected. _

Tony pushed down an emotion that felt a little too much like _grief_ and ground out,

_ “Why in fuck are we smuggling an infected boy?” _

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is shorter because I absolutely and completely could not help myself when it came to ending this on THAT cliffhanger. Also this chapter SUCKS. I'm sorry.


	4. Last Stop

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 4!!! I love writing this story. this one….this one is a doozy. I’m sorry if you don’t know what’s coming. If you do…....angst nation.
> 
> WARNING for MAJOR CHARACTER DEATH

_ “Why in the fuck are we smuggling an infected bo_ _y?” _

Tony’s bitter gaze bore into Peter, who was cowering against a large crate across from the body of the male soldier. His eyes were wide with fear and desperation.

“I’m not infected.”

Tony scoffed nastily, fury ruling him. _ Infected infected the kid’s infected. _“Oh yeah? And the reader’s just lying, is that it? _ Goddamn it.” _

He threw the reader in Peter’s direction and it bounced near him. He flinched at it, then extended his hand out towards them and patted the air in a _ calm-down-and-listen-to-me _gesture.

“I can _ explain.” _

“Well, you better get to it, _ fast _.” Pepper advanced on the boy, her gun poised in a threatening manner, letting Peter know it could send a bullet into his brain with a twitch of her hand. Peter swallows, eyes on the pistol.

_ Jesus. But he’s infected. _

_ “Look at this!” _Peter jerks up the sleeve of blue plaid shirt to reveal a nasty bite to his forearm. 

_ Infected. _

Tony growled and turned away, waving his hand in the boys direction, unable to look at him anymore knowing that the light, _ the light he’d only just allowed himself to accept as a thing _, Peter possessed would soon be snuffed out, either by Pepper’s bullet or the cordyceps fungus currently growing behind those big brown eyes.

“I don’t care how you got infected.”

Peter made a distressed sound, and gestured aggressively to his arm. “It’s three weeks old.”

Pepper exploded. _ “Bullshit! _Everyone turns within three days, so just stop with the bullshit!”

“It’s three weeks, I _ promise!” _

_ Oh, he _ ** _promises._ **

_ God, he’s so young. _

“Look,” Peter seems to collect himself. “_ Why _ would Steve set you up? Why would he lie?”

The glance he and Pepper share is contemplative, because _ that _ was a great question.

_ Why would he lie? What would he gain from setting us up? _

Tony didn’t have time to contemplate it. Lights and the sound of an engine gunning interrupted their conversation, and Tony turned to see a military Humvee, no doubt full of soldiers, gunning towards them.

_ Shit. _ “Pepper, move!” He didn’t let himself focus on Peter. His brain was already forcing his heart to let the boy go. His brain had _always_ been smarter than his heart. 

As he ran for the shadows, he heard Pepper snap at Peter, “Come on, let’s go, _ move!” _And then he heard both pairs footsteps running behind him. 

Huh. 

Escaping the soldiers was cutting it close - _ too fucking close. _ It was a mad dash through broken tunnels and dilapidated, collapsing buildings, ducking from flashlights and _ literally _ dodging bullets.

After ducking into an underground tunnel, they were able to catch their breathe and gather any supplies they could find. They did so without speaking a word on the elephant in the room. Well, the elephant in the abandoned concrete tunnel.

After following the extended tunnel they finally made it to a tunnel gate, and then it seemed Pepper was done waiting. 

But the things she said were _ not _ what he expected she’d say.

She gripped Peter by the shoulders and pushed him to sit on the ground. 

“Listen, kid. What was the plan? What if we were to deliver you to the Avengers? What then?”

Peter seemed flustered by the questioning, but answered diligently. 

“Steve...He said that, this group, they have their _ own _little quarantine zone, with doctors….doctors who are trying to find a cure.”

Tony scoffed with his entire body as he scanned the area for signs of patrol, half listening to the ridiculous conversation. “Yeah, we’ve heard that before, haven’t we, Pep?”

Peter flinched at the venom in Tony’s voice, but continued when Pepper nudged him. “And...And that…” He seemed reluctant. He sighed, then finished with “That whatever happened to me is the key to finding a vaccine.”

Tony raised his eyes to the sky as if asking God if he was hearing the same shit he was. “Oh, Jesus.”

Peter glared in annoyance. “It’s what he_ said _.”

Tony rolled his eyes. “Oh yeah, I’m sure he did.”

Peter shot up, a fire flashing in his eyes Tony hadn’t yet witnessed. “Hey, _ fuck you, _dude, I didn’t ask for this!”

Tony brushed off the boys anger, and stepped into Pepper’s space.

  
“Pepper, what the hell are we still doing here. We need to get going, we--”

“What if it’s true?” Her voice was soft, and almost challenging.

Tony stepped back as if the force of her stupidity was a physical thing. “What if it’s-- Pepper, it’s _ not, _it’s--”

_ “What if, _ Tony?” This time she stepped into his space, and almost pleaded with him. _ And Pepper Potts didn’t plead. _ “I mean we’ve come this far, why don’t we just finish it?”

He gripped her bicep and dragged her further from Peter. “Do I need to remind you of the shit that is _ out there?” _

_ The shit that we’ve seen. The shit that we’ve _ ** _been_ ** _ . The shit I hope that kid never sees. _

_ That kid who’s way, way too much like my own, but also completely not. _

Pepper glanced back at Peter, who was watching them with apprehension, and then looked at Tony with a _ knowing _in her eyes that made him feel naked. It was like she’d read his mind.

“I get it.”

_ She got it. _

_ She didn’t fucking get it. _

Tony drew a shaky breathe, and resigned himself.

“No, you don’t, Pep. Let’s go.”

  
  
  
The stormy, summer air was thick, and the rain heavy. It added to the already extensive flooding, and made all the climbing onto broken freeways and skyscraper pieces all the more treacherous.

When they made it to a flat spot not far from a couple of still mostly standing office and business buildings, Peter did that marveling thing again.

“Whoa….So this is what those building look like up close. I’ve seen pictures but, jeez. They’re so damn tall.”

The boy looked to them as they continued through the storm, his voice raised over the thunder and rain as he asked, “So what happened here?”

“The military bombed the fuck out of the ares surrounding the quarantine zones, hoping to kill as many infected as possible.” Pepper shrugged, and Tony remembered how loud the bombs had been. For hours and hours they’d set them off, destroying the once beautiful city. No one had slept that night.

Tony was pulled from his thoughts as Pepper continued, “It didn’t work for very long.”

Almost as if on cue, as if they were in some cheesy horror movie that Harley would have loved, the screeches of infected could be heard under the storm, echoing off the crumbling buildings.

Peter’s breath hitched. “Uh, what the _ hell _ was that?”

Tony and Pepper tensed, but shared knowing looks. “Sounded pretty far away, it’s ok.” Pepper assured Peter.

But he wasn’t convinced. “Are we safe?”

Tony made a _ pfft _ sound. “Of course we’re not safe. We’re on the outskirts of a quarantine zone. Infected _ love _ the outskirts because it’s the closest they can get to people. The smell drives them wild. And when they smell _ us, _we’re--”

“_ Tony. _ Could you kindly _ shut the fuck up? _” She turned to a stricken looking Peter.

“_ Yes, _we are safe for right now. Don’t worry okay? We’re not gonna let anything happen to you.”

_ Way to make a promise there’s no hope of keeping, Pep. _

They reached a deep drop off that they had no hope of crossing. They could just barely see the golden-domed top of the capitol building in the distance. 

They were forced to cut into a large office building, that at least got them out of the relentless rain. The entire building was tilted drastically to the side, so desks, chairs, filing cabinets and everything in between were all falling onto each other in giant, heavy heaps.

They came upon a dead soldier in the first hallway. _ Damn it. Way to pick the unlucky building, universe. _

“He’s been ripped apart.” Pepper observed grimly.

“Yeah…”

“Body’s pretty fresh.”

“Is that bad?” Peter inquired. 

“Yeah, might be...Let’s not stick around.”

Not 30 feet into the next room, on a stair case, they find another body, slumped down and bloody as it leaned against the wall. This one has a clipboard with the soldiers patrol notes on it.

**M-254e FIELD OPERATIONS LOG**

18:08: Arrived Grid 2438A. Negative Contact at LZ. Moving patrol west towards city center.

21:00: Negative Contact.

22:18: Negative FUCKING Contact.

23:12: Pvt. Wilson reports visual/sound contact stage-2 Cordyceps infected near collapsed office building. Moving to investigate.

23:40: MULTIPLE infected contacts. Pvts Wilson, Barnes, and Lang KIA.

**OVERRUN FELL BACK TO BUILDING INTERIOR - AWAITING EVAC.**

Tony drew a shaky breath. “Looks like these guys died waiting for backup.”

_ The infected could - and most likely were - still be here. Enough infected to kill an entire army patrol. _

_ We’re fucked. _

The next body they cam across furthered that point.

“_Goddamn it_. A clicker.”

Peter stopped beside him and stared at the grotesque body of the clicker. “Jeez... What’s wrong with its face?”

Pepper pursed her lips. “It’s what years of infection will do to you. The fungus in the brain grows out and covers the face.”

“So...Are they blind?”

“Sort of. They see using sound.”

“Like bats?”

“Like bats. If you hear one clicking, you gotta hide, cause that’s how they spot you.”

The clicker had died on a doorway, and the plates of fungus had moved from its body onto the door and surrounding wall. Tony gripped the things shoulders and ripped it from the door. He forced it open with a few good hits with his shoulder.

He turned and gestured to his comrades. “If the biology lesson is finished, could we continue?”

Peter and Pepper both glared at him.

With a few steps into the room, they heard the screech of metal and the groan of support beams.

Peter’s breathing went erratic, and Tony heard Pepper reassure him quietly. 

_ And what in the hell was up with that? _

But he said, “Whole building sounds like its about to fall apart. And it probably is. You know, with the whole _30 degree angle tilt, went through like 80 bombs_ thing.”

He received more glares, but Peter’s was more scared than anything.

After a quick jaunt through an office type spaces, they came to a door that Pepper and Tony had to use both of their strengths to open. It screeched as they hit it repeatedly, and Peter winced.

When it finally did pop open, Tony was the one with his full weight on it, and he went flying forward with his momentum.

Before he could even fully right himself, Pepper screamed “Tony!”

He turned and got a full view of a clicker racing towards him before it slammed into him, throwing them to the ground

He gripped the thing around the neck and fought with it for all of three seconds, before Pepper slammed her boot into it. Knocking it away, and shot it several times in it’s overgrown head until it lay still.

Tony rolled shakily to his feet, breathing erratically. _ Jesus. Jesus. My heart is getting too old for shit like that. _

“Thanks…” He could barely get the word out.

“Are you alright?” Peter voiced to him, sounding scared and concerned.

“It’s nothing…” _ Just...get it together, Stark. _

Pepper turned to them, her eyes blank.

“Let’s search for supplies.”

Peter followed her into the next room, and exclaimed to Tony as he passed, “Shit! That was intense, huh?”

And surprisingly, this made him feel a little better. “Yeah...yeah, it was intense, kid.”

As Pepper and Tony searched the large room - _ a break room - _top to bottom, Peter opened a few cabinets, then went to one of the broken drink dispenser machines. He kicked it.

“I wish these still had soda in them. I’ve never had one.”

Pepper humored the boy. “Never? You’re missing out buddy.”

_ God, a soda. A Pepsi. That sounded fucking heavenly. _

“And you probably never _will_ have one. They stopped the production of all that shit a little before you were born. Soda, candy, chips, chocolate, cupcakes. All the “frivolous” stuff. There’s none left.”

Peter looked glum. “I’ve never had any of that stuff. Steve said that one time my dad found a pack of stale “smarties” whatever the fuck _ those _are, and let me have them when I was like two. But I don’t remember.”

Tony smiled at this. “Shame. Smarties were delicious.”

Pepper curled her lip. “Smarties were _ disgusting. _The most pointless candy. You’re not missing anything kid.”

“Your face is disgusting.”

Peter giggled about this for three whole room searches.

They came across a ledge with another soldier's body flopped down over it.

Tony boosted Pepper up, who turned and in kind lifted Peter, then Tony up behind her.

As soon as they all had their feet on the ground, frantic clicking echoed along the walls.

“Clickers?” Peter whipped his head in their direction, but there was no time to answer. Tony grabbed the boys arm and pulled him down behind a desk just as the clicker peeled into the room. Pepper was in front of them, having gotten there first. 

They stayed incredibly still as the clicker roamed the room, Tony still holding Peter close to him, in case they had to run.

When the clicker turned it’s back to them, Pepper whipped her hand out and grabbed an old glass beer bottle, and tossed it in the opposite direction. The clicker screeched at the sound and advanced in its direction. 

They took their opportunity, moving crouched behind the desks, until they reached some scaffolding up to the next floor.

After another bottle toss, they were able to scramble up, Tony making sure Peter was up before he was. The kid was way less likely to survive the clicker spotting them than Tony was.

Once they were safe, Pepper turned to Peter. “You alright, kid?” 

Peter just nodded tightly.

They continued making their way through, which included a _ ridiculously _dangerous and stupid jaunt over 20-year-old, bomb-weakened window scaffolding, until they made to yet another nightmare.

They stepped into a room with torn out walls, and the room below them echoed with the growls, gurgles, and moans of 

“Runners.” Pepper completed his thought. 

Tony sighed. “I’ll go. Stay with the boy.”

He felt Peter’s eyes on him until he jumped down into infected room.

There were five runners, one he quickly was able to take out from behind with a shiv.

He ducked behind a support beam and worked it out in his head. 

He could try and stealth, which on the surface sounded safest. But despite the many objects and walls to hide behind in the room, the infected were still too close to each other, which was dangerous with runners. Unlike clickers, they stumbled around a lot with no real place to go, and four was too many too keep track off. And one sound, or one runner spotting him while he was off guard and it would be over. 

He completely decided against stealth when he realized that one of the infected was actually a clicker. Clicker’s were near impossible to fight off when they grabbed you. 

_ So, straight in it is then. _

Though less dangerous than the first option, this one was dangerous on its own too. Tony could easily be overwhelmed if he didn’t make every shot count.

_ Whatever. Just get it done. _

Tony stood up and aimed a shot into the clicker's head. _ Take the clicker down first. After that the runners are simple. _

He continued laying shots into the clicker as the runners screamed and raced towards him. _ Ignore them. Ignore them. Get the clicker down first, before the ge to you. _

In the nick of fucking time, the clicker _ finally _went down just as the first runner reached him. He systematically took them out with hard, heavy hits from a metal pipe he’d collected as they came at him.

He was grabbed once, fought it off, and then dealt it a brutal head slam that sent brain matter flying.

And it was done.

“Alright, come on down.” He said, but he could already hear Pepper and Peter making their way to him.

Pepper whistled as they came up to him. “I’m impressed, Tony.” She teased.

Tony made a _ pfft _sound again. “Let’s go.”

They continued on.

Pepper stepped closer to him and said “See? We’re doing alright.”

“Uh huh.” Was the only answer.

“You know, I was thinking--”

“You do that too much.” 

“And _ you _don’t do it enough.”

_ Touche. _

“Anyway, wise ass. I was thinking….After we’re finished with this, and it’s done...We could take it easy for a while.”

“_ You _wanna take it easy?”

“You’re the one who’s always spouting about laying low.”

“And _ you _always brush me off.”

“Well….I won’t this time.”

_ I’ll believe it when I see it. _

They made their way downwards, through collapsed floors and tilted rooms. When the made it to a flatter surface. It was much darker here, and damper. 

Pepper aimed her flashlight on a yet another body. But this one was different.

“Look at his sleeve.” 

Tony did, and saw the band around the dead man’s upper bicep. The blue band with the red ** _A._ **

“Avengers. These guys aren’t doing well in or outside of the zone. Let’s hope there’s someone alive to meet us at the dropoff.”

Peter shifted on his feet.

“Hey, it’s gonna be fine.” Pepper assured. 

_ Here’s hoping, _but he didn’t voice it this time.

15 feet away was the body of another Avenger. This one had a map of the city with the capitol building highlighted. On it with black pen was written, 

** _-MEET UP WITH SECOND AVENGERS TEAM AT CAPITOL BUILDING TO DISCUSS BOY._ **

**BOY**

**5’8 (?)**

**14 years old**

**Brown hair**

“They’re from the quarantine zone. They were supposed to meet with a team to “discuss” Peter. Whatever that means.”

“See? They’re not our boys.”

“Guys.”

Peter’s voice was so soft it was a whisper. He was crouched in front of an opening in the wall that they need to get through. “I think those Avengers are the least of our problems.”

They moved to him and looked through the opening. 

Tony held back a curse.

The room ahead was _ crawling _with clickers.

_ Yeah. We’re fucked. _

“We’re not fucked.” Tony had spoken aloud, and Pepper wasn’t having it. “Tony, you take point, I’ll watch the rear, Peter, no matter _ what _ you stay right on his heels.”

“Okay.” Peter breathed, sounding nervous. 

_ Who the fuck wouldn’t sound nervous? _

Pepper caught his eye. “Stay sharp.”

“I got it.” Inching forward, Tony focused.

Five clickers. Two runners.

One runner had it’s face buried in the stomach of some poor dead bastard. It was less of a problem than the other, though that one was across the room.

Clickers and runners together were the _ worst _mix. Runners had excellent hearing and sight. You could walk right in front of a distracted clicker and they wouldn’t notice, not if you were quiet.

But runners were tricky, easier to kill, but harder to evade. And one sound of alarm from them and the clickers would be on you a second.

Tony and Peter hid behind a vending machine, and Tony waited for the first clicker to move close enough for him to grab and shiv it. It screeched as it went down, and the noise agitated the others, but didn’t alert them to any non-infected. 

Tony completely bypassed the the occupied runner.It wasn’t a current problem.

It was tedious going. _ Tedious fucking going, _but they managed to make it to the gate.

Tony spotted the ladder. He also spotted the clicker in their way.

“Peter, behind me.” He didn’t even notice the protectiveness of the action of making sure Peter was far from the clicker’s path. It was like when his brain was in the middle of such laser focus, there was no room for the games it liked to play.

Thankfully, distracting clickers was easy. With a toss of a bottle the thing was across the room and they were able to pull down the ladder and scramble up. Tony didn’t breathe until his feet hit the top of ladder, as he was the last one up.

“Holy shit, we actually made it.”

Tony resonated with the disbelief in Peter’s voice. _ Yeah, we actually made it. _

“Everyone okay? Good, let’s move.”

“You guys are pretty good at this stuff.” Peter commented.

Tony couldn’t hold the reality back this time. “It’d called _ luck, _and we’re due to run out.”

They ran into a small group of runners, and took them out quickly.

“They’re recently infected.” Pepper observed. “Like “_ just _ turned” recently.”

“Which mean there’s more in the area. We gotta go.”

They climbed their way over a semi truck, and ran into a sliding garage door that could be opened by pulling a chain. Tony got to work opening it, the screech of metal deafening, but was stopped by Pepper gesturing wildly at him.

Tony paused on the pulling and when the noise of the door went quiet, Tony’s ears were assaulted by the sounds a _ horde _of screeching infected. “Oh fuck!”

“_ Double time, _Tony!”

They managed to make it under the door - barely. Barely as in _Tony could feel the grabbing of hands at his heels as he slid under the door, and arms were cut off as Pepper let the door slam down _barely.

The trio stepped back to catch their breathe as infected pounded and screamed their anger.

“Uh, you got something on your shoe.”

Peter gestured to Tony feet, where he looked down and saw a hand with a bit of forearm still attached to his right foot.

He kicked it off nonchalantly.

“Gross.” Peter empathized.

They were in a dark garage, and Tony immediately began to search for supplies, listening to Pepper and Peter’s conversation and pretending like he wasn’t as he went.

“So Steve thinks you’re immune?”

“It’s what he believes.”

“How were you bitten? You must have been somewhere you shouldn’t to have found infected in the zone.”

“Yeah...I’d sneak out. I was at HYDRA.”

“Sneak out?”

“Yeah, explore the city, ya know? I was in the mall when I ran into the infected.”

“That place is completely off limits, how the hell did you get in there?”

“I…..had my ways. Anyways, one of the, um, runners bit me and….that was that.”

There definitely sounded like there was more to _ that _story.

“Were with Steve? When you were bitten?”

“No, I went to him for help….afterwards.”

“How did he _ not _shoot you?”

“He almost did.” Peter laughed a little before sobering. “I hope he’s alright.”

“I told you. He’s gonna be fine, I promise.”

They found their way into the old museum, and almost immediately, Peter knocked over a vase, which was probably a priceless artifact or something. It shattered loudly in the room.

“Shit, shit! Sorry, I’m sorry.”

Tony pretended he wasn’t adorable. “Pepper.”

“Sorry!”

“C’mon, Pete. Stay close to me.”

They continued up, and into one of the main rooms.

“So, what is this place?” Peter inquired, taking in the objects within the few glass cases that _ weren’t _broken.

“It’s an old museum. Some of this stuff is hundreds of years old.”

“_ Really? Whoa.” _Peter’s face gave away that he was amazed by that. The thought of something being 100 years old was probably mind-boggling to the kid. Even the lifespan of objects was short in his world.

Part of the roof was collapsed in, and the path was partially blocked by fallen support beams and debris.

Tony managed to lift a beam just enough for Pep and Peter to squeeze under, but he buckled when the roof caved and the beam fell again, reblocking the path and now weighed down by heavy debris.

“Tony! Tony, are you okay?”

“Mr. Stark!”

Tony’s heart clenched at Peter’s cry. “I’m okay, I’m...alive, at least. I guess I’ll make way around t--”

He was interrupted by the scream of infected. _ On the other side and behind him. _

  
“_Peter, run!” _Tony heard Pepper scream, and their footsteps pounded away, clickers and runners on their heels.

“_ Fuck.” _

There were three clickers in the room with him, but he dealt with them quick and clean - _ clean for him anyway - _by throwing a bottle to group them together, and taking them all out with a single Molotov.

When the last one fell, his only thought was for Pepper and Peter.

He made it to a stairwell and started to climb, and as he ascended he could hear gunshots, shouts, dying, angry infected, and hastened his gait to a run.

There was a runner beating at the door he could hear the commotion behind, killed with a piece of thick wood, and burst through the door into chaos.

The first thing he saw was Pepper struggling with a runner for a split second before he knocked it back with a small plank and shot it dead.

He ran to her. “I’m fine, I’m fine, _ Peter.” _

“Guys, _ help!” _

They ran into the other room, and Tony’s gut twisted at the sight of Peter grappling with a male runner, hungry for the boy’s flesh. 

He went on instinct instead of tactic and punched the _ fuck _ out of the thing, knocking it away from Peter. “Get _ off!” _

But when that one went down, 5 more appeared.

It was a flurry of panic and punches and blood, and it went on for what seemed lke hours, but was probably only a minute, which was a _ long fucking time _to street fight fucking infected, but there was no time to pull out guns.

When Tony punched down the last one, he whirled to Peter and Pepper, who both looked bloody and shaken and winded, but otherwise fine.

“Everyone okay?”

“Yes.”

“Yeah, I’m good,”

They moved to the center of the room near, still on alert.

“Oh shit.” Pepper breathed, and rested her hands on her knee.

“Pep? You holding up okay?”

She shot back into a standing position, and gestured them to the windows. 

“Yeah, just a bit winded. Let’s go through here, the rooftop. It should get us going in the right direction.”

She jumped out, but Tony held back and faced Peter. “Well, how about you, kid? You doing okay?”

Peter made a teenager sound. “Define okay.”

“You still breathing?”

“Do small, panicked breaths count?”

Tony held back a chuckle. 

“Yeah, those count.”

“Then I’m great.”

They hopped out the window and up the fire escape to join Pepper on the rooftop. She was in the middle of laying a large plank atop the railings of the two buildings.

“There’s our golden dome.” She pointed to the Capitol building in the distance.”

“Let’s get across.”

Tony gestured for Peter to go first. “Now, watch your step as you’re going over, okay, cause it’ll be a little wobbl--”

Peter pushed passed him and stepped up onto the plank with ease, eloquently expressing his previous knowledge of plank walking _ and _ his superiority to Tony with a “ _ Pfft” _as he passed. 

Tony was reminded of Harley. _ Again. _But for some reason this one wasn’t as acidic in his stomach.

With the sentiment still in his mind, he stopped beside Peter when he dropped down next to him, and observed the sunset glinting on the golden Capitol building.

“Was this everything you were hoping for?”

Peter’s big brown orbs glinted up at him in the sunlight, and Tony felt a pinch in his heart.

“Jury’s still out.” Peter said softly, “But...You can’t deny that view.”

You really couldn’t.

“Yeah.”

“C’mon, this way.” Pepper broke the weird, soft moment by nudging Peter’s shoulder and encouraging him to climb down the roof ladder to the ground.As he did so, she turned to Tony, a perturbed look in her eyes.

“Look….we’re almost done. Just….Just stay focused, alright.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He totally knew what she was talking about. “But yes ma’am.”

Once on the ground, Tony came across another dead Avenger, with a printed note: 

**ORDERS: ** _ Patrol the rendezvous area. Ensure no military presence before moving the boy to the next safe house. _

And a handwritten addition on the bottom of the paper:

** _Make sure the boy is well fed and in good health. His safety is of the utmost importance._ **

  
  


“Another dead Avenger?” Peter managed. “What if- what if we get ther, and they’re all dead?”

“They won’t be.” Pepper said firmly.

“But how do you know?”

“I just _ know.” _

It was the first time she’s ever really snapped at him.

“.....Okay.”

She sighed and seemed to calm herself. “Everything is going to be okay. It has to be.”

Tony didn’t miss the desperation in her eyes. 

Before he could question her about it, she was herding them forward.

All it took was over one more fence and through one more alley, and they made it to the wide street, the capitol building right in front of them beyond a small lake of murky green water filling the broken street. _ Finally. _

“There it is, Pep. Homestretch.”

When they reached the bank of the flood water, Peter stopped and cautioned them, “Just so you guys know, I can’t swim.”

Pepper seemed to lighten a bit, and chuckled. “Look, it seems like it’s a bit shallow on the ends, follow me.”

As Pepper led Peter through the shallow parts, Tony overheard Peter say, “Hey, uh...I know you guys are getting paid for this and I know it’s probably been pretty annoying for you, but..I’m glad Steve convinced you to take me. That he hired you. I- I’m trying to say thank you.”

Tony could hear Pepper’s soft smile. “Yeah, you’re welcome, kiddo.”

They finally made it to the stone steps, and Tony could feel himself tense up as they climbed them. They had no idea what was on the otherside of those doors. _ Well, it’s now or fucking never. _

And they went through. 

And into the worst case fucking scenario.

“_ No!” _ Pepper exclaimed.

The floor was littered with dead Avengers. The drop off team was no fucking more.

And they had no fucking direction to go next.

“No, no, no.” Pepper chanted as she dropped to her knees and began to aggressively paw at one of the fallen Avenger, searching his many pockets frantically.

“What are you _ doing, _Pepper?”

“Maybe they uh, maybe they had a map, or- or something to tell where they were going, I don’t know--”

“And why does that matter to us? How _ far _are we gonna take this, Pep--”

“_As far as it needs to go!”_ She continued to search for a minute before snapping her gaze to Peter, who stood away from them demurly. Poor kid probably thought they were about to up and leave him there. _And it isn’t that what we’re gonna do, Stark? What else did ya have in mind?_

Tony had nothing in mind.

“Where was this lab of their?” Pepper demanded.

Peter jumped, then shrugged spastically. “Steve- Steve never said, he only said that it was like, someplace out west.”

“_ Pepper. _ What are you doing, what are _ we _doing? This isn’t us, we need to--”

“What the fuck do you know about _ us, _Tony? About me?”

Tony was not about to dissect whatever the fuck _ that _meant, so he just said, “I know that you are smarter than this. You’re better--”

“_ Better? _ Tony, we don’t know jack _ shit _ about being _ better! _ We are _ shitty _people, Tony, it’s been like that since the beginning--”

“No, we are _ survivors--” _

“This is our chance--”

“_ It is over, Pepper!” _

His angry voice echoed through the empty building.

“We _ tried. _ We really did. Now let’s go the fuck _ home.” _

To his bafflement, his _ terror, _tears filled Pepper’s desperate eyes.

“I’m not….I’m not going _ anywhere, _Tony. This is my last stop.”

_ What? _

“Holy shit.” Peter breathed from behind him. Tony whirled to look at him, and Peter’s wobbly eyes met his own, before flicking back to Pepper.

“She’s _ infected.” _

_ Infected? _

_ Infected. _

** _Infected._ **

He faced her slowly.

He saw the truth in her wet eyes, eyes that were _ never _wet.

He stumbled back.

“Tony--” She started softly.

“Let me see it.” His voice was the opposite of steady.

She clenched her jaw, and jerked back the collar of her plaid shirt.

“Oh, _ Christ.” _

The bite was there, clear as day on her collarbone. _ Her beautiful collarbones. _

“_ Oops, _right?”

_ Don’t joke. Don’t fucking joke. _

Peter choked on a small sob behind them, but Tony didn’t turn.

Pepper did though, and advanced towards the boy.

“Give me your arm.” She gripped it, jerked up the sleeve of Peter’s shirt, revealing his bit and gesturing to it. “This is_ three weeks old.” _

She revealed her own bite and advanced on Tony, who was frozen, dragging Peter with her, who remained quiet and blank faced, silent tears falling.

“I was bitten an hour ago, and it’s already worse. _ This is fucking real, Tony.” _

She released Peter to get into his face. “You have _ got _to get this boy to Rhodey’s, he used to run with this crew, he’ll know where to go--”

Finally, Tony broke. “No, no, _ no, _ that was _ your _crusade. I am not doing this--”

“_ Yes, _ yes you are, Tony _ please.” _

She cupped his face in her hands, and Tony felt sick inside.

“There’s enough here, enough between us for you to feel some sort of loyalty, right? Some sort of obligation to my last fucking wish. So, please, _get him to Rhodey’s._ My last wish, Tony. It’s all I want.”

_ Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, FUCK. _

The sound of a truck came form outside the doors, and Pepper jerked away to glance out the wndows. She pulled out her gun and turned to face him. “The soldiers. They’re here.”

Fuck.

“I can buy you some time, but you have to _ run. _” 

Just as everything in protested that idea, Peter spoke up, “_ What? _You want us to just leave you here?”

“_ Yes.” _

Tony had heard enough. “There is no _ way--” _

_ “I will not turn into one of those things, Tony!” _

There was a heavy, heavy pause.  
  


“Come _ on _.” Pepper pleaded softly. “Make this easy for me.”

Tony gave it one last go. “I can fight--”

“_ No! _ Just _ go!” _

She shoved him hard in the chest, causing him to stumble backwards.

It was the last time she’d ever touch him.

“Just go.” The plea was gentle, and desperate.

So Tony went.

“Peter-” Tony started.

“I- I’m _ sorry. _” The boy sobbed. “I didn’t mean for this, I--”

“Let’s get a move on.”

Peter went without further argument, and Tony backed his way to the backdoor slowly, his eyes locked with Pepper’s.

Breaking that contact, turning for that door and his back on her was the hardest thing he’d ever done. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So far, at least.
> 
> This is only chapter 4, Tony.
> 
> Speaking of, I’ve made an outline for this, and it looks like it’ll have 11 or 12 chapters. 
> 
> Oh, and…...I’m sorry. I did warn you.


	5. Let Him Find His Own Way

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> hey.
> 
> to anyone who actaully cared about this story, I am so sorry for disappearing for 5 months. Its terrible. It's so bad, I know. I have absolutely zero excuse. 
> 
> but!!! since I am out of school bc of the virus, I have plenty of time and no excuse NOT to work on this. 
> 
> in this chapter we get to meet happy, and tony show's off some of his natural "protect peter" instincts.
> 
> idk if anyone is gonna read this, but if you do, I hope you enjoy.
> 
> TW// brief mentions of suicide by hanging

  
  
  
  
  
  


Tony pulled the heavy doors closed with a loud echo of finality.

“Oh my god! Oh my  _ god. _ ” Peter’s voice was breathless and frantic. _ “ _ I can’t believe we just did that!”

Tony was numb. “Shut up.”

“We just left her to die!”

“I said  _ shut up!  _ We’ve got to  _ go.” _

_ Can’t do anything for her. Gotta go. The kid. _

Tony’s brain was on power saving mode.

“Stay close to me. We have to move.”

He turned and raced up the nearby stairs, pretending like he wasn’t waiting for Peter even as he listened for the kids footsteps behind him. The sound of yelling and shooting penetrated the walls.

_ Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck. _

There was a feminine cry and the shooting stopped as they reached the balcony. 

Tony heard Peter choke down a tiny sob.

Tony halted as they entered through double doors onto a balcony overlooking where they had just been. Two men, soldiers, were down and bleeding and  _ Pepper-- _

_ God, so was Pepper. _

Her long blonde hair soaking in the blood pooling beneath her. _ .. _

_ Pepper. _

One of the soldiers spoke into his radio. “Took down a female straggler. She took two of my men. We’re gonna search the building for the other two. Over and out.” The men scattered.

Peter was beside him before he could even think about blocking his view. 

“Oh god. Oh, god.  _ Pepper.”  _ The boy had never sounded younger.

_ No time. _

_ _ “We’ve gotta move.” He couldn't afford to let either of them feel anything until they were safe.

He led Peter into a side room with an open window leading to a balcony that was nothing but a platform now, its railing completely broken away. There was a gaping hole in the building directly across from them, and it was an easy jump to it from the balcony platform. “Peter, jump ahead of me.” It was a hard landing on the knees, but it gained them progress to the exit.

He instructed Peter to duck behind some crates as he did the same, pulling out the hunting rifle and loading it.

The men filed in and Tony began to systematically take them down a shot at a time. Peter jumped each time, muttering “Holy  _ fuck.”  _ as he’d peeked his head up just enough to see a chunk of a man’s head blown off.

“Peter!” Tony snapped. “Keep your head down! Unless you wanna end up like him?”

Peter ducked again. 

_ “Avengers! Pin them down!”  _ A soldier yelled out. 

_ They think we’re Avengers. Fuck. That is not good for us. _

Once every soldier in front of them was down, Tony gestured for Peter to follow him as he advanced, crouched low and listening hard for movement or noise. 

They crossed the room and got to the staircase, racing down it to another floor. They quickly ducked for cover upon hearing more soldiers.

“What are we gonna do? Mr. Stark, how are we gonna get outta this?” Peter’s voice was hushed and nearly hysterical. Tony couldn’t deal with the kid's fears when the roaring in his own head was all consuming.

“Just be quiet and let me do this.”

Once the remaining soldiers in the building were down, they snuck outside. Tony couldn’t be sure if they weren’t more soldiers lurking, so he cautioned Peter to stay low.

They beelined for the subway entrance across the street, and had just made it in when they heard soldiers yell out their location. An armored truck, complete with a  _ fucking machine gun  _ pulled up to the entrance behind them and started firing a heavy stream of violent, deadly bullets. 

“Peter, run!”

They sped deeper into the broken down subway, escaping the truck but running right into-

_ Spores. Shit. _

Tony skidded to a stop in the nic of time to dig out and tug on his mask. Peter had run ahead.

Tony made his way to the entrance to the tracks, about to call Peter’s name, but suddenly the boy was beside him and pulling him down to cover. 

“Soldiers. Everywhere.” He whispered. “Almost spotted me.”

_ Yeah, because you ran ahead like an idiot,  _ Tony thought.

But before he could say it, he realized something  _ crazy. _

Peter’s face was bare, his voice clear. 

Meaning Peter wasn’t wearing a mask.

“How the  _ hell  _ are you breathing this stuff in?”

“I wasn’t lying to you. I really am immune.” Peter’s eyes bore into him, full of such earnesty Tony felt chastized.

“Yeah. Yeah, okay.”

Turns out there weren’t soldiers everywhere, as was Peter’s exaggeration. There were only two, quickly dealt with.

Their real problems were further down the subway lines. It was badly flooded. The deeper they went, the deeper the water.

“Hey, uh, I can’t swim.” Peter said as if Tony hadn’t heard him the first time.

“We’ll figure something out, okay?”

They were able to walk along the sides of a raised concrete edge, and on the other side, where they needed to go, Tony spotted a ladder. 

_ But how the hell was he gonna get Peter across? _

As much as he didn’t want to, he had no choice but to jump into the slimy, freezing water. 

He hissed and growled as the water soaked into his clothes. 

“Is it cold?” Peter asked.

“Uh,  _ yeah.” _

“Just asking.”

Tony spotted one of those wooden pallette things, the ones that grocery stores used to stack goods on top of, floating along the concrete edge, and got an idea. He hoped Peter was light enough for it to work. 

He grabbed the pallatte and eased it against the edge close to Peter's feet. “Hop on.”

“Are you sure?”

“Peter.”

“Okay, okay.”

Miraculously, Tony was able to haul Peter across the water on the pallatte with relative ease, making it so Peter could jump onto the next ledge and drop the ladder for Tony to climb up with him.

“Alright, let’s get outta here.”

The spore tubulets sprouted everywhere, reminiscent of flowers but surrounded in disgusting, fungus-y muck and pumping out thick, deadly spores.

Through the spore-hazy air, Tony spotted a light at the top of a narrow staircase. When they made it to the top, Tony thanked every god there was and pulled his mask off.

Then he sat down on a pile of old tires. Just sat.

And breathed. 

Peter sucked in a breath. 

“Listen, um....About Pepper--”

_ Oh yeah. Pepper. _

“I don’t even know…. what to say--”

“Nothing. Say nothing.” Tony bit out.

Peter blinked at him. “But--”

“Look, here’s how this gonna work." He pinned the boy with the hardest, most "don't fuck with me" gaze he could muster at the moment.

"You don’t bring up Pepper.  _ Ever _ . Matter of fact, let’s just keep our histories and thoughts and  _ feelings  _ to ourselves, yeah?”

_ Ground rules. Boundaries. Those are good. _

“Secondly….don’t tell anyone about your.... _ condition _ . People will either think you’re crazy or try to kill you, most likely both. And lastly….you do what I say  _ when _ I say it. That's the only way either of us are gonna make it out alive." Tony studied Peter. "Are we  _ clear?” _

The boy dropped his gaze.

“Sure.”

“Repeat it.”

Peter’s eyes flashed. “Don’t mention anything that gives you hives, which is anything  _ normal  _ people actually talk about, don’t tell people my business, and what you say-”

The little shit broke off as he threw his hands up sarcastically, “ _ goes.” _

Tony drew a deep sigh.

“Good enough.”

With that settled, he paused to consider their options.  _ What's the plan?  _

_ To take this kid across country. To embark on a goddamn suicide mission for “the cure for humanity”.  _

_ Sure, Pep. _

_ Pepper.  _

Tony rose. “There's a town, a couple miles from here. A guy there owes me some favors. There's a good chance….he could get us a car.”

All the fight seemed to have drained out of the kid, as he looked tired all of a sudden, and almost timid. “Okay.”

_ Well, at least he’s agreeable now.  _ “Let’s get a move on.”

  
  
  
  


After several hours, they’d made it completely out of the city and onto a dirt road in the woods, just outside of "Happy’s town."

“Right there.” Tony guided Peter’s gaze, which had been on his scuffed converse for most of the journey, to a water tower with the words  **LINCOLN ** painted across it.

“Come on, let’s cut through the woods. It’ll be faster.”

They jumped the twisted guardrail and picked their way through the brush and into the woods.

“Whoa.” Peter breathed quietly, wide brown eyes looking around to take in the fading sunlight shining through the trees, the squirrels scattering, the birds chirping and flitting away. 

“What?”

“Nothing, just…. I’ve never seen anything like this.”

“You mean...the woods?”

“ _ Yeah.”  _ Peter said defensively, hunching his shoulders. “I’ve never walked through the woods.”

He laughed lightly as he observed two squirrels tussaling with each other above them in a tree, squealing and chirping. “It’s…. kinda cool.”

It was cool, and the kid's bright, amazed face was achingly cute, but Tony said nothing cause that was a  _ revolting  _ thought.

“Hey,” Peter addressed him suddenly, “Why don’t you just take me back to Steve?”

_ Because I promised Pepper.  _ “Because he wasn’t up to the task. If he was, he wouldn’t have asked u- me.”

“Well...Maybe he’s better now.”

Tony sighed. “Look, kid, I don’t mean to upset you, but your friend's chances of survival weren’t very high to begin with. Even if that wound didn’t kill him, some soldier will. Eventually.”

Peter raised his chin, his cheeks flushed with exertion from the walk there. “He’s alot tougher than you think.”

_ He’s alot tougher than you know, kiddo.  _

“Look, it doesn’t matter. I doubt I could get either one of us back into the city in one piece. Trust me, I wish there was another option.”

Tony jogged slightly ahead to give them both a moment of relative peace and privacy.

He could hear Peter talk softly to animals behind him, “Hey buddy!” to a terrified and fleeing rabbit and a “Whoa! Don’t fall fall, buddy!” to a scrambling squirrel.

_ This kid will destroy me if I’m not careful,  _ he thought, laughing to himself as Peter began to narrate the lives of the woodlen creatures he spotted.

Just as they breached the woods and reached the fence around the town, Peter laughed brightly. “Whoa, look!”

His arms were held outwards around him and he was surrounded by little flashing green lights, his young face lit with wonder and the sunlight and the tiny reflection from the flying lights. “Fireflies!”

The sight made Tony’s own heart feel heavy in his chest. “Yeah, I see.

Peter smiled big and bright for another few seconds, and then seemed to collect himself, dropping his arms and stepping out of the cloud of fireflies. “Sorry, I....Lost myself for a minute.”

“It’s...It’s okay.”

He used his hand as a visor as he looked over the fence into the distance, at a thin stream of smoke in the air.

“Is that what's his name?” Peter asked. “The guy we’re looking for?”

“Uh. yeah. Happy. That’s probably him.”

“Probably? Well, where do you usually meet him?”

“Uh, different places.” 

Peter speared him with a puppy-eyed glare. 

“You’ve never been here, have you?”

Tony rolled his eyes. “I know this is where he lives, but no, I’ve never been here personally. But he is most likely here. He doesn’t trevel unless it’s to trade with me.”

“Well, let’s go find out.”

They came a gate in the fence, but it was jammed from the other side with a piece of pipe between the handles.

“Here, boost me up and over and I can open it.” Peter said, stepping back as if Tony was gonna automatically obey his request.

“Nuh uh. That’s not such a good idea. There’s infected everywhere in this town. Happy uses them as a defense system.”

Peter sighed. “Well, I can’t boost you up. How else are we gonna open it?”

Tony surveyed what of the town he could see. It seemed quiet. _That_ _ could change in an instant. _ But it would’t take Peter long to pull the pipe from the handle and the gate would be open.  _ There could be something else keeping it closed. Maybe it’s rusted shut.  _

_ There’s no other way open the gate. We gotta take the chance.  _

Tony sighed heavily, anxiety in his bones. “Alright, fine. Hurry up, and if you hear  _ anything,  _ you pull out your switchblade and run to cover.”

“I got it, I got it.”   
  


Tony boosed the kid up and over the top of the gate. Peter landed hard on the other side and quickly went to work on the pipe. It didn’t seem like he was very eager to be seperated from his only real form of protection for too long.

Nothing went wrong, despite Tony’s anxieties, and Peter got the door open no problem. They were on their way to Happy. 

“So, let’s say we get a car from your buddy. Then what?”

“Then we make our way to Rhodey.”

“Steve said he was your friend? Or your brother?”

Tony grimaced. Rhodey was a sore subject. 

“More importantly, he was an Avenger. He’ll know where to take you. He lives far from here, which is why we need the car--” 

He was interrupted when Peter suddenly exclaimed, “Gnomes!”

He was wide eyed and pointing excitedly at a cluster of cheery, glassy-eyed garden  gnomes.

“Uh, yeah. Those are gnomes.”

“I’ve never seen one. I had an art book full of them. I always thought they were so cute. Not fairies though. Fairies creep me out.” He shuddered dramatically.

“Okay, then?”

He had no idea what to say in the face of this kid’s extreme excitement over chubby garden decorations.

They decided to search a few buildings, and upon entering the first one Peter gasped in excitement again. “Oh my god,  _ look!”  _ He gestured to an arcade game machine named  _ The Turning. _

“What, you’ve played this before?” He asked as Peter began to fiddle with the dead controls.

The kid got a soft, sad smile on his face. “No, but...I had a friend who knew eveything about this game. It’s about the badass female warrior named Angel Knives, who would punch a hole in your stomach before kicking your head off.”

“Sounds grusome. And awesome.”

Peter looked at him as if he had just became a new person. “Yeah! Yeah, it’s so awesome!”

“Yeah, I bet.”

They headed out of that building and Peter stopped in front of one of the worn evacuation notice signs in the street.

“‘Mandatory Evacuation?’ Evacuate to where?”

“To quarantine zones. Some people got a heads up before the infection spread to their towns. Most didn’t.”

“Man. It must be hard.” Peter looked at him, as if asking for a story Tony hadn’t ever told to anyone but Pepper.

“Leaving all your stuff like that?”

“That’s not the hard part.”

They walked in silence until Peter spoke up again. “So, what’s the deal with this Happy guy?”

“He’s helped us smuggle stuff in and out of the city for years. He knows how to find good stuff. Which is why I’m hoping he’ll have a car.”

“What if he doesn’t?”

“Then we’ll have to get a couple pairs of shoes from him instead, cause we’ll end up wearing them out with all the walking we’ll have to do.”

They ran across a bow and some arrows, and Peter asked if he could use it. “I’m a pretty good shot with it.”

“Why don’t we just leave this stuff to me, okay?” The last thing he needed was the kid shooting an arrow into his own leg. _Or_ worse,_ Tony's._

“We could both be armed!” Peter whined. “And cover each other.”

“I don’t think so.”

As they got closer to the smoke, something suddenly occured to Tony. He thought about what it would be like when Peter and Happy met. Peter was all bright and smiles and sass and Happy was all paranoia and no nonsense and well... _ not  _ happy.

Putting the two of them together could volatile.

“Listen, uh...Happy isn’t exactly the most welcoming of individuals, so...When we get there, you let me do the talking okay?”

“Okay. Sure.”

“I’m serious, he doesn’t take kindly to strangers. He’s a good guy, he’s just...gotta warm up to you first.”

_ He also hates kids. Peter’s is not gonna be his favorite person. _

“I get it.”

“Okay. Just making it clear. Stay close, okay?”

They came to a warehouse that was worth looking into. “Let’s go in here, Pete.”

When he opened the door, a strange whirring sound started up. “What the h--”

“Mr. Stark, move!”

Before he could even process the kid’s shout, something jerked hard at his ankle and he was suddenly--

upside down. 

_ A trap. A goddamn booby trap. Damn it, Happy. _

Peter was yelling and the blood was rushing to his head as he swung from a rope  looped around his ankle. “Mr.Stark! Mr. Stark, are you okay!?”

Peter ran to him and grabbed his shoulders, steadying him from the dizzy swinging. Tony gripped the boys arms and looked at his upside down face.

“I’m fine, I’m fine. A fucking booby trap. Look, over there, that fridge with the rope attached to it? That’s the counter weight, just go over there and cut the rope, okay? It’ll get me down.”

“Okay.”

Peter ran to obey him, grabbing a five gallon bucket to stand on so he could climb on top of the refridgerator to get to the rope. 

And then then the dreaded scream of infected sounded their imminent arrival.

_Fuck_.

“Peter! Infected!”

“I hear them, I hear them!” He said, frantically sawing at the rope with his small switchblade.

They started rushing in, runners and a few clickers.

It was dizzying and desorinting to shoot upside down - but he had to, or he and Peter would be clicker chow.

“Tony!” Peter cried out as one runner got a little too close to Tony.

“I’m fine, just tend to the rope!” He didn’t even notice the kid hadn’t called him Mr. Stark. He was too busying trying not to die.

Peter must’ve put too much of his weight on one side of the unbalanced fridge, because it fell on it’s side and Peter toppled down with it. The rope shortened and yanked Tony higher off the ground. 

“You okay?” Tony asked as Peter scrambled to his feet!”

“Yeah!” The boy choked.

“Come on, the rope. You can do it, Pete.”

Another wave of infected started in, and Tony had a horrible realization. He was out of the infected's reach. 

_ And Peter was right on their level.  _

“Peter, hurry!”

Peter, who must have also realized the danger he was in, was cutting at the rope desperately, whining with frustration and fear.

“It’s okay, kiddo. I’m gonna cover you.” Tony promised, and took aim.

He shot as fast and as accurately as he could, but the gun had to be reloaded, which cost him time, time that afforded a few infected getting to Peter. The kid fought them off like a fucking trooper, pushing them away from himself so Tony could get a shot off and then going right back to the rope.

He was so focused on protecting Peter he didn’t even realize that Happy was  _ Happy  _ and not an infected - he was about to shoot him - until he whipped out a machete and sliced through the rope as Peter stumbled back.

Tony lost sight of them both as he toppled to the ground hard, and struggled to get to his feet. Just as he did, Peter’s yell of “Tony, watch out!” had barely registered before a wriggling infected slammed into him and knocked him on his back. 

He struggled with it for all of 3 seconds before a machete ripped through it’s face.

_ Happy. _

“Off your ass and on your feet,  _ boss. _ ”

Yep, that was Happy.

Suddenly they were running, Tony grabbing Peter’s arm as he whipped past him, tugging him behind him.

They scrambled into a building, infected pounding at their heels, until they shut a door in their face and suddenly they're were two in front of them and coming through their only way out. “I’ll take them out.” Happy said calmly, and began to do so. With his machete. 

“Peter, stay back.” Tony warned, but it was already over.

“This way!” Happy was running again, into another building.

Happy slammed and barred the door behind them.

They struggled to catch their breath.

“Man!” Peter gasped. “That was close!”

Happy snapped to look at him, and Peter smiled awkwardly, trying to catch his breath. “Uh, thanks, for the heroics and all, we--  _ hey!” _

Happy had grabbed Peter’s wrist and firmly and quickly handcuffed him to a pipe sticking out of the wall.

“Happy!”

“Tony, he--”

“Happy,  _ chill- _ -”

Happy whipped toward Tony, pistol drawn. “Turn around and get on you knees!”

Tony, knowing better than to argue, clenched his jaw and did as he was told.

Happy came behind him and began patting him down. “You got any bites?”

“No.” Tony growled as Peter struggled behind them.

“Anything sprouting?”

“No, goddamn it. We’re clean.”

Happy hummed. “If I see so much as a twitch --  _ aghh!” _

Peter had ripped the pipe from the wall and slammed Happy in the arm with it,  _ hard. _

_ “Son of a bitch!”  _ Happy flinched back.

Tony jumped to his feet and grabbed the pipe from Peter’s ready hands. 

He whirled to Happy, gesturing to him with the pipe. “Are you done?” He questioned angirly. 

Happy’s eyes widened comically. “Am  _ I  _ done? You come into my town, you set off my traps,” He gestured to Peter, still cradling his arm, “ _ You  _ damn near break my shooting arm!” 

He looked to Tony. 

“Who the fuck is this punk and what is he doing here?”

Peter, flared up and angry and cute as a goddamn growling puppy, snapped,

“I am none of your goddamn business, and we’re here cause you owe Mr. Stark some favors, and you can _start_ by taking these off!” He held up his arm that the handcuffs were hanging off of.

“Peter, let me--” Tony started

“Oh, I owe Tony some favors? Is that some kinda joke?”

Happy turned away and leaned against a dirty counter. 

Tony sighed. “Look, I’ll cut to the chase, Hap. I need a car.”

Happy pinned him with a searing look. “Oh, so it  _ is  _ a joke. Tony needs a car. No problem! I’ll just fire up the new audi in the garage, take it, it’s all yours!”

He threw his machete down onto the counter with a clatter and a shower of blood. 

“Even if I had a car that works, which I sure as hell  _ don’t _ , what makes you think I’d give it to you?”

“It’s not as if you’d need it, you stay in this town all by yourself like a fucking hermit or some shit, you’re not going anywhere.” Peter grumbled.

“Listen, here you little shit--”

“Peter!” Tony gripped the boy’s shoulders and walked him backwards into a corner. “I need you to  _ let me do the talking,  _ yeah?”

Peter sighed sullenly, but backed off.

Tony turned back to his old friend. “Happy, there has to be a car in this town--” 

“Parts. There are parts in this town, not a whole car--”

“Meaning that you  _ could  _ fix one up.”

There was a moment of tense silence before Happy growled and closed his eyes wearily.

He pulled a dirty map from his pocket and spread it across the counter.

“Alright, fine, if we’re gonna do this, I’m gonna need some gear.” He pointed to a red circled section on the map. “It’s on the other side of town. You help me gather that, and  _ maybe  _ I can put together something that runs.”

He looked at Peter, then Tony. “But after this, I owe you  _ nothing _ .”

He smacked the keys to the handcuffs onto the counter in front of Tony, who scooped them up.

“Fine.” Tony grasped Peter’s abused wrist gently as he freed him from the offending cuffs.

They made quick work of getting ready, and then set out for the gear.

“We have to cross to the other building, so hurry up. Let’s get moving.” Happy moved slightly ahead of them.

Peter made a sarcastic teenager sound under his breath. 

Tony did his best not to chuckle. “Just stay close to me, okay?”

“Jeez. You weren’t kidding about him.”

“Nope. He’s one of kind.”

They caught up with Happy, crossing through what looked to be apartments, with pictures on the walls and refridgirators.

“So what kinda trouble you in?” Happy questioned. “And where the hell is Pepper?”

Tony swallowed. “It’s just a job. A simple drop.”  _ Simple drop my ass. _

_ “ _ What are you delivering?”

“The kid.”

“That little brat?”

Peter growled.

“Watch out, Hap. He bites.”

“I’m more worried about his swing.” Happy said as he winced and rotated his arm.

“Where exactly are we going, Happy?”

“To my other safe-house. It’s more of an armory, actually.”

“Wait, I thought we were gonna fix a car?” Peter piped up.

“We? HA!  _ You  _ know how to--”

“Happy, just stop arguing with him. For my mental health’s sake.”

Happy shrugged. “Fine. We’re going to the armory because the side of town where the gear is? It’s filled with infected. We’re gonna need more guns.”

“Shit. I don’t want this kid around infected, Happy.”

“Can’t be helped!” Happy yelled as he walked ahead of them.

“I can’t handle myself. Mr. Stark.” Peter grumbled.

“Sure, Pete.” Tony brushed him off, too busy thinking of hordes of angry infected.

Peter sighed dejectedly.

“So,” Happy broke in again. He was in a talkative mood. “You didn’t answer my question about Pepper. Where is she?”

He heard Peter catch his breathe behind him.

For some reason Tony couldn’t voice it aloud. “She’s busy.”

Happy scoffed. “Sure she is. Sounds to me lke there's trouble in paradise.”

_ She was paradise. When she wasn't hell.  _

_ Now she’s gone.  _ “Yeah, something like that.”

They exited the building onto a wide street littered with dead cars. 

“You picked a hell of a place to hole up, Hap, if it’s filled with infected.”

“Well, as bad as those things are, they are at least predictable. It’s the normal people that scare me.”

_ That’s fair. _

They broke through a gate into a yard. Happy gestured to a cellar, pulling out a key to unlock it. “In here.”

Happy led them down into the dark cellar. Happy lit a few lanterns and illuminated the place, which was dirty and damp and  filled to the brim with shit of all kinds _ .  _ Books, magazines, toys. And guns. Lots of guns and other weapons too. 

“Grab some stuff.” Was Happy’s invitation as he gestured to the weapons. "Don't touch  _ anything _ else."

Peter surged towards the weapons, but Tony grabbed his arm. “Nuh uh.”

Peter huffed up at him. “What? I need a gun.”

“No, you don’t.”

“ _ Tony.  _ I can handle myself.” 

Tony’s hackles rose at the deliberate use of his first name.

“ _ No.” _ He snapped. _ “ _ And that’s _ final.  _ Just stay right here.”

He turned and went to the weapons, ignoring Peter when the boy scoffed and snarked, “Fine. I’ll just wait around for you two to get me killed.”

Happy rolled his eyes at Tony. “This goes on record as the worst fucking job you’ve ever taken.”

Tony closed his eyes as Peter continued to grumble in the corner “It’s up there.”  _ For many reasons. _

Happy grabbed a rifle and loaded it. Tony did the same. “How in the hell is Pepper okay with this suicide mission?”

_ Jesus, he’s really stuck on Pepper isn’t he?  _

_ 3“ _ It was, uh, her idea, actually.”

“Well then she’s not as smart as I thought she was. But you gotta take that kid back where you found him, I’m telling you.”

“Happy, I can’t just take him back.”

“Then send him packing, let him find his own way.” 

_ That  _ was a horrible idea. The thought of Peter alone, on his own in this world against all the things that could happen to him made him feel sick to his stomach.

_ Fuck that.  _ The kid wasn't leaving his sight _ . _

"Look, lemme tell you a little story." Happy continued, oblivious to Tony's troublesome thoughts. "Once upon a time, I had somebody that I cared about. He was a--" 

Happy paused. "A partner, of sorts. Somebody that I had to look after." Happy continued to aggressively load and put away the many weapons spread out on a damp wooden countertop before him as he spoke.

"And Tony, you know as good as anybody that that kinda shit? Is only good for getting you killed. So I wisened the fuck up, and realized that its gotta be just me." He shoved a shotgun into Tony's hands. 

"Look," Tony sighed, "it's not like that." 

"Bullshit. It's exactly like that.  _ Hey!" _

Tony turned to look at where Happy was glaring, and saw Peter jumping back from where he'd been flipping through a pile of old dirty magazines. 

"What did I say?! What did I tell you when we came in here?"

Peter glared, but his cheeks were pink. "I'm just fixing your stupid pile!"

"Don't  _ touch."  _

Peter flipped him off. 

"Goddamn it, Tony. If you keep babysitting--"

" _ Happy!  _ Can we just get on with it? Please?"

Happy grumbled. "Yeah, sure. The sooner you idiots are gone, the better."

Happy led them out of the cluttered room and into a large, open one filled with dirty mattresses.

"So what's the deal with this car?" Tony asked as they walked. 

"Every couple of weeks a military caravan comes through looking for supplies. At least that's what I assume they're doing. They overlook alot of shit. Anyway, a few weeks back they were rolling through and got overun by a horde of infected, they were all over the truck. It ran off the road and plowed right into the side of the h ighschool. Its still sitting there, with the battery inside."

"So we get it, put it in another car and we're good to go?" 

"Bingo. I wanted to get it before but it seemed too dangerous with all the infected on that part of town. But fuck it… Tony needs a car!"

Tony rolled his eyes. "What if its damaged?"

"No way, those trucks are like tanks. It's fine."

Happy led them to a large window, which they jumped out of and into an old cemetery.

"Like my decorations?" Happy gestured to a pile of infected bodies, that he had obviously set on fire to burn away not too long ago. 

A pile of melted and mangled rotten flesh and old bones, basically. It was grotesque. 

"Ugh." Peter grimaced, but his eyes were wide.

"Come on, you don't need to be looking at that." Tony said, resisting the urge to tug the boy away from the mess. Peter scoffed at him. "I've seen worse."

Tony hated that that was probably true. There was no such thing as innocent eyes anymore.

"Follow me." Happy said.

They cut through the cemetery and into a small neighborhood, running into a few infected, nothing too bad. 

When they made it to the highschool parking lot, they stop to assess the situation before them.

A horde of infected roamed the parking lot listlessly. 

"Look, there's the truck sticking out of the wall." Happy points, and Tony can see the back end of a heavy duty black army truck protruding from the school wall. 

"We're gonna have to get in, get it, and get the fuck out  _ quick. _ We cannot get pinned in there."

They ultimately decide to go in guns blazing, as it's just runners, and runners are easy to deal with as long as you don't let them gang up on you. 

They take them out surprisingly easily. 

"That was easier than I thought." Happy breathed. "There must be more holed up around here, we gotta hurry."

And just as they made it to the truck, the sound of another frantic hoard could be heard. 

"They're coming!" Happy yelled

"Run, Peter, run!" 

They all run, searching desperately for an entrance to the building. 

"Here!" Peter cried. "A window!" 

Tony ran to where Peter was yelling from and saw the boy climbing atop a large air conditioner and squeezing through an open window. 

Tony and Happy followed suit, and Happy yanked the window closed as the infected ganged behind them. 

"That's not gonna hold!" Peter cried.

Tony took guard of the window, while Peter pushed a desk in from of the locked door as infected began to pound at it. 

"Happy, hurry! Get the battery!"

Happy yanked open the hood of the truck and froze. 

"It's empty."

_ Empty.  _ "What?!"

"It's fucking empty!"

" _ Guys!"  _ Peter was struggling to hold the door closed. 

"Happy, where do we go?"

"Anywhere but here!" He said, and took of towards the hallways.

Tony whirled and grabbed at Peter's shoulders where the boy was still valiantly holding the door together. "C'mon, Pete, haul ass!"

They took off as Peter let go of the door, hearing it fly open behind them and feet pounding as infected rushed in.

They raced through the dark halls and cut through dusty classrooms, running into infected at almost every turn and having to fight them off. 

Finally they made it to the large gymnasium of the school, which seemed safe. They barricaded the door they came through best they could, but it didn't even matter cause just as they finished, a second door burst open, and out came a giant, oozing, stumbling pile of fungas and rot.

_ A bloater. Goddamn it. _

"What the fuck is that?!" Peter cried in alarm, as the thing stumbled towards the sound, growling and gurgling

"Peter, take cover!" Tony yelled, just as the thing aimed one of its disgusting spore bombs at them and tossed it.

They ducked and ran as the spores exploded in a cloud. "What's it throwing at us?" Peter asked, hiding behind a large rolled up gym mat. "Pete, just stay away from it!" 

Luckily, Happy had molotovs. The big, stupid, and blind bloater was no damn match for two of those and some simple dodging and maneuvering. Once it was down, Peter gingerly made his way to them from his hiding place. "What the hell was up with the big guy?" 

Tony sighed. "He's been infected for a long time. 10 years. We call them bloaters. They're rare, and not too bad of a threat as long as you have space to get away from them."

"Yuck." Peter grimaced at the oozing, chared pile of fungus that was the bloater.

"You got that right."

"If you're little biology lesson is over, can we please get put of here?" Happy snarked, gesturing to a window. 

"Yeah, yeah, we're coming."

Once outside, they raced to the relative safety of a house. 

They caught their breath as the sun as set on their failed mission.

"So…That went well." Peter gave an awkward laugh. 

Happy and Tony glared.

"I'll uh, search the house, I guess." He made a quick escape before Tony could even tell him to be careful.

Tony breathed in hard. "Happy--"

"Don't start with me. Someone else had the same idea, they stole my shit."

"Well, then what the hell is plan B?"

Happy gaped at him like he'd grown a second head. " _ Plan B?  _ You oughta be glad you're still fucking breathing! That was plan A, B, all the way to fucking Z! And  _ furthermore,  _ you can tell Pepper she can take this job--"

"Don't fucking bring Pepper into this--"

"--and shove it up her ass!"

"This has nothing to do with--"

Tony stopped. Happy had ceased yelling and was staring off to the side. 

Tony turned to see a body, clothed in a ratty floral shirt, strung up with a rope and decaying.

"Jesus. What, do you know this guy?"

Happy's shoulders slumped. "Its Phil."

Tony sighed and threw out his arms, exasperated. "Who the hell is Phil?"

"He was my partner."

_ Oh _ .

"He was.....The only idiot who would wear a shirt like that." Happy said, almost bitterly, as he unsheathed his machete and sliced through the rope, causing the body to drop to the floor heavily.

"Damn it, he's….He's got bites, here...And..." Happy trailed off pointing out the bites on his friend. 

Tony swallowed hard, unsure of how to proceed.

"I reckon he didn't wanna turn, so…"

"Yeah, I guess not. Well.....Fuck him." Happy didn't sound as sure as he probably meant to. 

Tony was saved from the horrible awkward and somber nature of the moment by the sound of a truck struggling to start. 

They stepped into the garage and found Peter in the driver's seat of a blue and white pick up truck, turning the key repeatedly, to no avail. He still looked triumphant as he looked to them.

"Look what I found! It's still got some juice."

Happy moved to the hood and jerked it open. "The battery. The fucking battery is in it!" He glared in shock in the direction of where Phil lay. "That fucking asshole."

Happy shook his head as if it clear it and said, "Well, the battery is drained, but the cells are alive. Meaning that we can push it, get it started, and maybe the altenator will recharge the battery. This is as good as that plan B you wanted gets."

It would have to be enough.

Tony sighed. "Peter?"

The boy perked up.

"You drive and we push."

It was touch and go a few times, but eventually, pushing the truck down an incline on the road gave the truck enough energy for Peter to be able to start it up.

_ Finally. _

They drove Happy a few miles back up to the safe zone, and Peter waited in the truck as Tony and Happy said their goodbyes. Happy have Tony a siphon he could use to take gas from cars along the way.

"Appreciate it. Listen, Happy...about your Buddy back there…"

"It's nothing. It's done." Happy sighed. "Are we square? All evened up now?"

Tony nodded. "We're square." They would have never gotten the truck if not for Happy, even if the original plan hadn't worked out. They were more than square.

"Good. Then get the fuck outta my town."

It was as good of a goodbye as Tony was gonna get. 

  
  
  
  


It felt strange, to be driving again. Tony hadn't done it in years, and it brought back crazy feelings of nostalgia. Memories of he and Rhodey driving all over the country, not even knowing what they were looking for. Or if they were looking for anything at all. 

Memories were very dangerous. 

"Aw, man, come  _ on!"  _ Peter complained loudly from his prone position in the backseat.

Tony rolled his eyes in exasperation 

"Peter, hey, what happened to sleeping?"

Peter snapped into a sitting position, teenage distress painting his young features.

"Okay, I know it doesn't look like it, but this here is a good read!"

He held up a Spider-man comic that was in relatively good condition. 

"Only one problem." He slapped the comic open to the last cover page and jabbed a finger into it, reading the words he was pointing to out loud. " _ To be continued!  _ I hate cliffhangers."

Tony blinked at him, unimpressed.

"Where did you get that?"

Peter looked sheepish, biting his lip to hide a smile. "Uhhh….Back at Happy's…"

Tony barely held back a chuckle.

"All that stuff was just laying there! He won't miss it!" 

Tony pretended to be annoyed. "What else did you get?"

"Well," Peter began as he dug through his back back, "There's this." He held out a cassette tape. " Does it make you all nostalgic?" 

Tony scoffed as he snatched it from him. "You know, this was actually  _ before  _ my time, thank you." He grinned as he read the words written in sharpie on the tape. "This is a great one though." 

He slid the tape into the stereo and grinned as AC/DC filled the truck. 

Peter looked unimpressed. "Well, it's better than nothing." He went back to rummaging in his bag.

"I got a whole stack of magazines." He said as he pulled them out and flipped through. "It was so easy to grab them when he wasn't paying att-" Peter trailed off. 

"What? What is it?"

Peter looked up at him through the rearview mirror, then quickly looked away, cheeks bright red. "Uh….this magazine, it's got….like... _ pictures _ in it."

Tony chuckled. "Yeah, Pete most magazines do." 

"No, like…"

Tony glanced back at the magazine in Peter's lap. His eyes nearly bulged out of his head. "_Peter_! Throw that out!" 

But Peter had become fixed on one of the pictures in the thick, glossy issue of  _ Playboy _ he'd accidentally snagged. "Woah…." 

"Peter!" Tony moaned helplessly. "That is  _ not _ for kids! That is not for innocent eyes!" 

Peter broke from his trance to glare at Tony. "Innocent eyes, my ass. And I'm not a kid. Maybe I wanna see what all the fuss is about. It's like  _ all  _ the other boys talked about at school." 

Quick as lightening, Tony snatched the magazine from Peter's hands and tossed it out the window. 

"Hey!" Peter exclaimed, but he wasn't that upset. The pictures had weirded him out anyway. It was just fun to mess with Tony.

"No more talking. No more magazines. Go to sleep." 

Peter hopped into the front seat, leaving his bag of goodies behind. "Pshh. I'm not even tired." 

He leaned back in his seat, staring out the window as woods and greenery passed them by. 

Peter reached down to turn the radio up. "You know, this isn't that bad."

He smiled at Tony, before turning back to his window. 

Ten minutes later, he was fast asleep.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	6. Hunted

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've had this chapter written for two weeks, but since nobody in my house can currently work due to this terrible virus, my phone bill wasn't able to be paid until LITERALLY like 10 minutes ago, so here's the sixth chapter :)
> 
> in this chapter some of tony's natural "protect peter" instincts come out, and we meet a couple new friends, and I would like to explain WHY I made these particular mcu characters these friends, because there were other characters I could've put in place of sam and henry that would have actually fit the characters better, but I chose to use the ones I did because, well...
> 
> It's because I don't like them all that much, and that makes it a lot easier for me to deal with, uh, certain things. I don't wanna spoil if you don't know so….
> 
> enjoy!

  
Tony tried to brake gently, cursing quietly under his breath, but the change in the truck's speed jerked Peter awake anyway.

"Wha--?" The kid mumbled, rubbing sleep from his eyes and sitting up in his seat as the truck idled. 

Peter blinked and Tony glared at the scene in front of them. There were dozens of cars on the highway in front of them leading into the city, rusted and dead with dents and broken windows. Not every direction was blocked, and they could easily get around the mess and into the city.

But the question was, did they want to? 

Tony felt unease tighten his stomach. He knew what kind of shit went on in larger cities like this one. The cars were a bad sign. A sign of a breed of monsters even worse than the infected. 

But going through was the only way. They couldn't go back, and they couldn't go around.

"Tony?" Peter questioned. 

Tony wasn't sure when exactly the transition from "Mr. Stark" to "Tony" had happened, but surprisingly, it didn't bother him anymore. 

The longer Tony was in Peter's presence, the more he became aware of the differences between Peter and Harley. No longer was Peter just "the boy who reminds me of my dead son". 

He'd become….more than that. More of an individual in Tony's eyes. 

Somehow, becoming attached to Peter himself lessened the pain of the similarities between the two boys that did exist. 

It helped. 

_ We gotta do it. _

"Screw it." Tony turned the truck in the direction of the unblocked section of the highway and drove on, AC/DC humming through the speakers on low.

But the deeper they got into the city the more Tony began to regret his decision. 

The signs of hunters were everywhere, from the lack of infected on the streets to the black spray painted road signs. 

_ Fuck. _

Sometimes, people who managed to escape from hunters would put any sort of warning that the hunters were there that they could, mostly on street signs as that's how most people came in. 

The hunters then proceed to cover any signs of warning by spray painting over them. 

Tony kept his eyes glued to the road, wheel gripped tight, ready for anything.

Peter could obviously sense the tension rolling off him in waves, as he turned to look at him worriedly. 

"What's wrong?" 

"Nothing's wrong. Do you have your bag?" 

"My bag? It's in the back."

Tony's was placed in the middle section between them. 

"Get it." 

"Why--" 

"Just do it, Pete."

Peter rolled his eyes, but quickly leaned over the seats to grab his bag and set it onto his lap. 

Just in time too, because Tony's goddamn instincts turned out to be spot on.

About 50 yards ahead of them, a man dressed in a dirty hoodie and jeans stumbled out from behind a car. Blood covered his entire front and he held his stomach, hunching over, obviously meaning to give the impression of being wounded. 

Tony slammed the breaks as the man continued to walk towards them, waving one arm and yelling for help. 

"Holy shit…" Peter breathed. 

"Put your seatbelt on, Peter."

"Are we gonna help him?"

Tony waited until he heard the click of Peter's seatbelt. 

"He's not even  _ hurt _ ."

Tony floored the gas.

The man yanked a gun from his waist band and began to fire at them even as he jumped out of the way.

Around them, dozens of other men, all brandishing weapons of some sort, jumped from behind other cars and onto the street 

"Holy  _ shit!"  _ Peter exclaimed as men emerged from all sides. 

A single bullet broke through the windshield and embedded into the backseat cushion, causing Tony to swerve a little. He was then forced to slow down as the road became clogged with shit, cars and pieces of buildings, forcing him to swerve and dodge.

Men began to pelt the truck with bricks and pieces of heavy debris, yelling to each other. 

Tony tried to keep laser focus on the road, but it was broken when Peter cried out as something hit his window and shattered it, peppering him with tiny glass shards. 

And Tony jerked his gaze to the boy just in time to see a  _ fucking bus  _ come at them from the side. 

_ These fuckers really thought this ambush out,  _ was his quick thought before pure adrenaline kicked in. 

He pushed the gas down even further, desperate to pull up enough so that when the bus hit them it wouldn't directly impact Peter's side. 

He  _ just  _ managed it.

The huge bus  _ slammed  _ into the back end of their truck, sending them spinning wildy, tires sqealing as Tony tried to gain any control that he could. 

They clipped another dead car, which sent them back into a straighter direction, but Tony didn't even have time to consider trying to control the wheel again, as they were headed straight for a  _ building. _

They were going so damn fast they slammed straight through the metal garage door in front of them and into some sort of large grocery store. 

The front end of the speeding truck collided with a stone wall, making the back end fly up and Tony and Peter fly forward, their seatbelts the only thing saving them from flying through the cracked windshield. 

  
  


Tony sat, stunned and dizzy and overwhelmed.

_ Peter. The hunters. Peter  _

"Peter? You okay?" He grunted, struggling with his seatbelt. 

"I'm okay, I'm okay." Peter was breathless, his voice high and cracking with fear. 

"Then get out,  _ quick."  _ Pete's seatbelt came undone easily, but Tony's refused to budge. " _ Damn it." _

He heard the pounding of running feet echo in the large building as someone approached. 

_ Shit. _

Peter's bent door was suddenly wrenched open, a filthy hunter smiling in at them with horrible yellow teeth and a wild, excited look in his eyes. 

"C'mere, you." He growled and grabbed at Peter's arm and began to  _ pull him from the truck. _

"No!" Tony yelled, grabbing Peter's shoulders and trying desperately to hold the boy to him. 

"Let me  _ go!"  _ Peter struggled wildy with the hunter as the men yanked at him in a desperate tug of war, but the hunter was stronger, pulling him completely out and causing Tony to lose his grip on Peter's shoulders and shirt. 

He managed to lock onto Peter's ankle as he was pulled out, holding it in a death grip as the hunter cursed and hoisted Peter up around the waist, pulling hard against Tony as Peter continued to struggle and yell. 

Tony was suddenly grabbed from behind, another hunter grabbing a handful of his hair and smashing his face into the armrest of the truck. 

The hunter did it again, and Tony felt his grip on Peter's leg slip just enough for the boy to be pulled away. 

Peter let out a strangled,  _ wrenching _ scream as they were yanked apart. 

"No!  _ Tony!" _

"Pet--!"

The hunter ripping at his hair jerked him into a sitting position and yanked him out of the truck so hard the seatbelt broke.

Tony was tossed to the ground hard, then grabbed around the neck and by the arm and dragged forward. 

The hunter slammed him through the glass door of a cooler, smashing it into a hundred sharp pieces, then proceeded to try and push his throat down onto a jagged edge still left intact on the metal frame. 

They struggled, Tony's arms and back straining as he fought the man's hold.

Tony then heard Peter cry out in obvious pain behind them, and then yell for him again. The desperation and fear in the kid's voice had him  _ surging  _ with new vigor. 

He jerked an elbow back into the hunter's face, causing the man to lose grip and fly backwards. Tony flew up and grabbed the stunned man, pushing him forwards, the jagged shard burying itself in his neck, the hunter meeting Tony's intended fate. 

The man gurgled his own blood as he fell, but Tony's only focus was Peter. 

He whirled to where Peter was till giving the hunter hell, struggling and fighting like a rabid cat. 

He saw Peter grab the man's arm and then bite down on his flesh  _ hard.  _

The hunter gave a strangled, angry yell, before grabbing Peter's shoulders and turning the boy to face him before slapping him so hard he was knocked onto his back on the filthy floor, crying out as he went. Them he dropped to his knees and began to  _ choke _ Peter.

Tony saw red. 

He surged forward, running hard, slamming his boot into the man's face before he even knew he was coming, knocking him away from Peter. 

Tony heard Peter coughing and sucking in air as he slammed the man's face into the stone wall until it was a bloody mess. 

He dropped the man's limp body. 

_ We don't have much time.  _

He whirled and grabbed Peter, lifting him to his feet as he continued to cough.

"What's- what's  _ wrong  _ with these guys? They  _ suck. _ " 

Tony hummed in agreement as he yanked his and Peter's bags from the truck, tossing Peter's at him before shrugging on his own. They had to  _ go. _

"We're leaving,  _ now." _

"Okay, yeah, I--  _ watch out!" _

Tony ducked blindly as another window of the truck was shattered by a bullet. 

"Cover!" Tony barked out as he dropped low.

There weren't as many as there had been in the initial ambush, and he suspected that after they'd crashed, most of the men had left the actual  _ murdering and stealing _ to only a few hunters. It was an easy fight to take them all down. 

When it was done, Tony turned to check Peter over.

The small boy was in rough shape. He was covered in tiny bleeding cuts from the shattered window. His face was red and there was already a bad bruise forming on his cheek, along with a split lip. His windbreaker was ripped and torn. His hair was wild. He was breathing hard and holding his arm at a weird angle, wincing whenever he moved it.

"Are you okay? What's with your arm?" 

"It's- it's fine."

"Peter."

"That asshole, he just…" Peter gave a shaky sigh. "He tried to- to  _ break  _ my arm. He was twisting it and- tryna bend it and stuff. I don't think he actually managed to break it but- it just…It  _ hurts _ ."

  
  
  


_ Harley’s eyes were bright. “M- My leg hurts. I don’t - I don’t think I can walk.” _

  
  
  


Tony shook his head. "Okay, okay I'll...I'll look at it when we get somewhere safer. Just be careful with it, okay?"

Peter nodded, reaching up with his good arm to wipe his cheek, smearing blood from some of the tiny cuts across his pale, bruised face. 

_ God. That was so damn close.  _

"You know the drill, just look around for anything we can use, okay?" 

Looting would give the shaken boy a chance to calm down.

"Okay."

They searched.

The only way out was to go through a door into one of the buildings in the square they were in. The rest of the perimeter was blocked my vehicles and debris that was covered in jagged barbed wire. 

_ Dickheads led us right into their killing circle.  _

Tony opened the door, weapon ready, but no one was inside. 

_ No one alive anyway. _

There were several bodies, stripped of clothing, lying across wooden tables. The room had huge piles, and the piles were sorted. 

One pile for shoes, one pile for each piece of clothing. 

_ Fuck.  _

Peter froze when he walked in behind. 

"Oh….oh  _ man.  _ This is what they were gonna do us, isn't it? Steal our stuff and….kill us?"

"Yeah." Tony said grimly. "It's kinda their thing." 

_ I would know. _

Peter stared down at one huge pile of assorted shoes. Some smaller than others. 

"That's a lot of people who didn't make it." He said quietly. 

Tony didn't have the capacity to deal with it right now. "Yeah. We better get going."

But Peter wasn't ready to let it go.

"How did you know?"

_ Shit.  _

"Know what?"

"Back there, before. With the guy. You knew he wasn't hurt, that he was just...That it was just a trick to get us to stop. How did you know that?"

"I've…..Seen it before. From both sides." He left it at that, but Peter was smart.

"Oh." He said quietly.

Tony felt naked. He felt exposed, knowing that this kid was now aware of something, a big something, he'd done that he'd always been so ashamed of. One of the somethings, at least. 

At the time, it had seemed the only way. It'd been only 5 years since the night he'd lost Harley, since the beginning of it all. 

He and Rhodey had been in one of the earliest big QZ's, and they were safe from the infected. 

But they weren't safe from hunger. 

Rations at the time were ridiculously low. In the early years, people panicked and hoarded. Stocks and stocks of food they could never eat alone and supplies they could never use alone. 

While others starved. 

It was before the actual rations system had been put in place, so there was no order. Tony was tired of going hungry, tired of sleeping on cold hard floors because there were no blankets, no beds. 

So he left. He just….Snuck out and left.

He hadn't told Rhodey. He didn't want to drag his friend into his shit. Into his death sentence. 

It was then, in those three years of living away from safe zones, of living at the mercy of the elements and the infected. And the hunters. 

Hunters didn't keep women and children around. Didn't even consider it. 

Women and children were always the first to be killed.

When they'd caught Tony, easily, as he was alone and unprepared to be ambushed by six men with weapons, and asked him if he wanted to join them, Tony had at first said yes to escape death. 

But then he saw how they lived. They never went without food. They hunted the animals that roamed free just as they hunted the humans. They sold and traded anything they got with other hunters. They lived, in retrospect, like kings. 

Tony had no qualms after that. 

Until he went on his first hunt. 

The family, a man, a woman, and a little boy, no more than three. Born into the infected world.

They still had their family dog with them. 

They made Tony kill the dog. They took care of the rest. 

For the next 6 months, Tony was witness to _so_ _many_ _murders_. So much death. 

He always tried to place himself as one of the guys who hung back, who let the others "have the fun" so that he could just run away from it. 

It didn't always work. 

The other men started to catch onto his ploy, started treating him differently, always regarding him in a teasing and nasty way. 

He was the pussy that didn't wanna get his hands dirty.

Tony knew that before long, they would just kill him and be done with it. 

So he did what he had before. He snuck out and left. 

And went right back to Rhodey. 

Rhodey didn't know any details about those 6 months. But Tony knew that his friend could read between the lines. 

"Did you kill a lot of innocent people?"

Peter didn't sound angry or disgusted. Maybe slightly afraid, but not….Like he wanted to crucify him. 

Tony tried to make a noncommittal sound, but it came out a desperate croak. 

"I'll take that as a yes." Peter sighed. 

Tony finally found his voice. "Take it how you want. Lets go."

Peter stayed quiet as they made their way out of the building onto the other side, and Tony gave him space.

His silence was broken however when they finally made it outside and came upon a pile of burned bodies.

"I...I don't guess these were infected, huh?" Peter said shakily, standing away from the pile of still smoking flesh.

Seeing the bodies gave Tony hives, and made him panicky.

_ We have to get away from this place. Now. _

"It doesn't matter now, we just have to get outta here. Keep moving."

They climbed a staircase leading back into the building to get over a fence blocking their way. From the top, Tony could see the bridge leading out of the city.  _ That's where we go. That's our way out.  _

"There's the bridge out, that's where we're--  _ hey!" _

Peter had already climbed over the stair railing and was on the ground waiting for him.

Tony cursed as he scrambled down. "Slow down, wait for me!"

"What? I'm right here." Peter yelled up at him. 

"How about you let  _ me _ go first, and  _ keep your voice down."  _ Tony stressed as he landed beside the boy. 

Peter rolled his eyes. " _ Okay."  _ He whispered it dramatically. 

Tony sighed. "Come on."

They'd dropped down onto a wide street, cracked and littered with cars. 

As they walked, Peter began to make the  _ weirdest _ sound he'd ever heard. 

He turned to stare at the boy. He had his lips poked out in a kissy face, and was aggressively blowing air through them.  _ "What  _ in the  _ hell _ are you doing?"

Peter glared at him. "I'm trying to whistle." 

"Whistle?" 

"Yeah, that thing people do with their mouths?"

"Hate to break it to you, kid, but that's the worst whistle I've ever heard."

"I'm not  _ whistling  _ yet, I'm  _ learning."  _

"Oh, yeah, sure."

They were teasing, but Tony was glad the boy felt comfortable joking with him again after learning of his past. 

It settled something in him. 

This street they were in was different than the one before. The cars were older, and there were things like suitcases and toys strewn everywhere.

And there were old, dried and skeletal bodies hanging from cars, littering the streets. 

"What happened here? Did the hunters do this?"

"No, my money's on the military."

"What? Why would they mow down all these people?"

Tony sighed. "Not everyone can go into the QZ's." 

Peter scoffed. "So what, they just killed them?"

"Yeah, because dead people don't get infected. It's the whole "sacrifice the few to save the many" thing." 

"That's really shitty."

"Yeah. You said it."

They made it to an old abandoned checkpoint, and Peter stopped to read a spray painted message on the wall.

**STOP FEEDING US LIES! GIVE US OUR RATIONS!**

"What? Why wouldn't they give them their food?"

"Sometimes they ran out. Most times they just held onto it themselves."

"That never happened in New York."

Tony scoffed sadly. "Trust me, it happened all the time. Still does."

Peter thought on that for a minute, his face intense. "I guess...I guess I wouldn't know. I was always at school and after that…I was with the Avengers. With Steve."

_ Good. He never went hungry. _

_ But…? _

"The Avengers aren't exactly overflowing with rations. They can't be." Tony puzzled.

Peter blinked at him, bruised face scrunched in concern. "Steve….Steve always brought me enough to eat. More than enough." 

Peter paused. "But...Now that you mention it….He never ate with me….If they didn't have enough why did they give me so much?" 

Distress colored Peter's young voice.

Tony just wanted to soothe him. "I guess Steve wanted to make sure you were fed and okay, kiddo." 

Tony didn't wanna talk about this. It was obvious Steve went hungry to give Peter enough to eat. Knowing that would freak Peter out. 

"But..."

"We don't have time to talk right now, okay? We've gotta keep moving." 

Peter was quiet for another 30 minutes of walking, eyes on his feet, but seemed to perk up when Tony suggested they cut through the big library, as had been Tony's plan. 

His eyes were wide as he took in all of the shelves, most of which still had most of the books. Books were only good for burning, these days. 

"Woah,  _ look  _ at all of them." Peter's voice was colored with both wonder and wistfulness. "I wish I had more room in my backpack." 

"You like to read, huh?" 

"Duh. It's so cool to escape to other worlds. Most of them are way better than this shit hole."

"Yeah, I bet."

Tony had the urge to grab a few books for the kid, put them in his own already overfilled bag, and would have, if he didn't know there would be almost no time for the kid to stop and read them. 

Whenever they stopped, it was to rest, and sleep was just as important to the success of their mission as walking was. 

_ When we get to Rhodey, then to the Avengers, I'm gonna find him all the books he could ever hope to read.  _

They continued through and out of the library, until they again had to cut through a building, this time a large hotel.

"Ugh." Peter wrinkled his nose as they stepped into the waterlogged coffee shop section of the hotel. "This place reeks." 

"Yeah, the wood is all rotted. Careful where you step."

Peter looked up at the cafe sign, where an animated coffee mug sat, with cheery smoke rising from it. 

"Did you go to coffee shops a lot before?" He asked. 

"Yeah, I did. All the time." Tony huffed a laugh. "I was kind of addicted to it." 

"You can get addicted to coffee?" 

"Yes. Absolutely and completely."

Peter scrunched his nose again. He did that alot when he was contemplating something. "Huh. What did you get?" 

"Just black coffee. No sugar." 

Peter looked thoughtful. "Was it good?"

Tony chuckled. "You wouldn't like it, but to me it was heaven." 

Peter looked as if he pitied Tony. "If I wouldn't like it then it was obviously gross."

"Obviously."

They made it to the fancy lobby, and Peter marveled. Tony did too. It was beautiful, even with the flooding and twenty years of neglect.

"Did you ever stay in a place like this?" 

"Uh, no. This was too rich for my blood." 

He remembered a time, when he and Harley had decided to take that little road trip. They'd made a pact to stay in the most rundown motels they could find on yelp (just as long as they were relatively safe. Gross didn't have to mean not safe.)

Jesus. The things they'd seen. Endless stains of all types, and  _ bugs. So many bugs. _

But it had been  _ so _ much fun. Stupid, but fun.

Six months after that trip, Harley was dead and life had changed forever. 

Now Tony was on another road trip. This one with decidedly higher stakes than "fun". 

As if Peter could sense Tony's mood change, he nudged his shoulder and tugged his backpack off his shoulders, kneeling to dig through it, careful not to set it in any water puddles. He pulled out a thin, colorful paperback book. 

"We need to lighten the mood." He stated, flipping the book open.

Tony sighed. "Peter--"

  
  


" _ It doesn't matter how much you push the envelope. It'll still be stationary _ ."

  
  


Tony blinked. "What is  _ that?"  _

"It's my joke book." Peter said, as if it should be obvious. " _ No Pun Intended  _ by Nick Fury." 

Tony sighed again. "Let's keep moving."

"No reason why I can't walk and joke. For example," Peter began to follow after Tony as he also began to read. 

" _ I tried to catch some fog earlier… _ "

  
  
  


Tony said nothing. 

  
  
  


" _ I mist. _ "

  
  
  


"Dear God."

  
  
  


" _ Do you know what's not right? _ "

  
  
  


"You subjecting me to this?"

  
  
  


" _ No.  _ Left. Left is not right."

  
  
  


"Please shut up."

  
  
  


" _ What does a pirate say while eating sushi? _ "

  
  
  


Nothing.

  
  
  


" _ Ahoy! Pass me some soy! _ " Peter scrunched his face up. "I don't get that one."

  
  
  


Tony hid a smile. 

  
  
  


" _ People are making apocalypse jokes like there's no tomorrow…. _ " Peter grimaced. "Too soon "

"Yeah."

"Well, that's all I got.  _ For now _ ." Peter slid the book back into his bag and stood. 

"That's the most threatening thing you've ever said." 

"C'mon Tony, we're burning daylight. Jeez."

Tony rolled his eyes like the entire moment had burdened him beyond compare, but everything that had just transpired was now burned into his brain as one of his most precious memories. 

_ Jesus, what is this kid doing to me? _

They climbed up, making it to the floors where the rooms were, where they discovered hunters patrolling the hallways. 

Tony motioned for Peter to stay silent, and they were able to sneak past them and to an elevator. The elevator doors were open, and it looked to have been in the process of being maintained, because there was a ladder inside leading up to the top of the car. 

They climbed up, and saw where the could get onto another floor by jumping to  _ another _ elevator car and climbing through  _ another _ open elevator entrance. 

After jumping to the rickety car, they saw it was too high to climb up to the next floor.

"C'mon, Pete, I'll boost you up there and you find something for me to climb up on."

Tony didn't know what it was exactly. The force of him using his weight to push Peter up through the doors and onto the next floor must have been too great.

It must have been something like that, because just as Peter was halfway through the doors, a huge, springy sound echoed through the chamber,  _ the sound of a cable snapping,  _ and the elevator car he was standing on suddenly  _ wasn't there anymore _ . 

" _ Oh shit--!" _

Peter yelled and Tony fell, fast and dizzy and chaotic, until suddenly he hit the surface of water and was submerged.

He struggled to break the surface, hearing Peter yell his name repeatedly as he did. 

" _ Tony!? _ " 

"I'm alright, I'm alright!" Tony had to yell across the distance between them, which was about 40 feet. "Are you okay?"

"_No!" _Peter snapped, voice echoing angrily. "You scared the _shit_ outta me!"

Tony struggled to catch his breath, heart still pounding.

Peter yelled again. "I'm- I'm gonna climb down to you, okay?"

" _ No!  _ No, you  _ stay  _ up there, Peter! There's nothing but water down here, and you can't swim! I'm just gonna make my way up to you, okay?" 

Peter made a frustrated sound. "Don't to anything stupid!" 

Tony huffed. "Yeah, I'll try."

Tony swam through a rusted doorway to his left, finding himself in the basement of the hotel.

He hated losing sight of Peter, but he hated not being close to him, being unable to protect him even more. 

_ Jesus. He's all alone in a giant hotel full of hunters with nothing but a switchblade. Maybe I should have given him a gun.  _

Tony had to get to the kid. 

His surroundings became dark and damp and rusted away, and Tony was instantly on alert. 

_ This was infected territory.  _

The water was at his hips in some places, at his ankle at others.

He continued to climb until the water was just a thin layer on the ground, but that's when he ran into what he'd been dreading.

_ Spores. Goddamn it.  _

He donned his mask and kept pushing on.

Visibility worsened with the spores, and between that and the darkness he could barely see.

_ Too much noise _ . The water was causing him to make unavoidable noise. 

This was not good. 

Familiar anxiety clutched at his chest.

Tony then stumbled upon the hallway from  _ hell _ .

Dark, damp and absolutely  _ teeming _ with spore tubulets and fungus piles. 

There was a red light at the end though, and Tony could make out the faint outline of a door next to it. 

_ God fucking damn it. _

Creeping down the hallway was near panic inducing, but he discovered a doorway, one that he could see through the small window on it led to stairs, which 100% had to lead back up onto the room floors. 

But he needed a goddamn  _ key card.  _

_ Always something. _

He lost that frustrated train of thought however when he heard an angry snuffling sound, and the rise and fall of running, shuffling feet behind him. 

He whirled, shotgun at the ready, but could see nothing. Nothing came for him. He kept the gun raised and waited. He knew the game. 

Finally, from behind an old crate burst an infected of Tony's absolute least favorite type. 

Half runner, half clicker.

All the power of a clicker, without the blindness. All the desperation of a runner, without the mindlessness. 

_ Fucking stalkers. _

It charged at him, and Tony loaded it with two shotgun shells. Even as it fell, he saw another run from one room and across the hall into another. He aimed ahead and waited. 

The worst part about stalkers?  _ The hiding. _

It took forever, but the best way to deal with stalkers was to position yourself and wait them out. If you tried to hunt them, they'd flank you. If you moved, they'd follow. If you wait out their game, eventually, the desperation takes them over and they run out at you anyway. 

But not without seeing if you'd fall for their tricks first. 

There were four in this group, and Tony took them out efficiently with his strategy. 

Finding the key card wasn't hard, but Tony could feel panic beginning to smother him. 

Stalkers had always terrified him. 

To get through, Tony always relied heavily on the fact that infected were stupid. They were mindless and easy to trick. That's how you beat them. 

It was endlessly horrifying to him that stalkers were different.  _ They _ could trick  _ him.  _

Every little sound had him tensing, he could barely breathe. Even as opened the door and left the left the spores behind, he struggled to calm himself. 

_ Stop it. It's done. You gotta find Peter.  _

The tightness disappated as he moved up.

He came across a few hunters, easily dealt with. He was itching to find Peter, and hoping against hope that he hadn't gotten himself into trouble. 

He found a ladder, and propped it up so he could climb up a ledge to leave the area. 

But just as he'd reached the top, another hunter dropped down on the ledge from above and kicked him  _ hard  _ in the face, sending him flying off the ladder and into a large circle of shallow water on the floor below. He'd barely risen out of the water when the man jumped down from the ledge and shoved him back in head first, pressing his face into the ground.

Tony's handgun was lying in the water, feet away. He struggled with the man, he lungs beginning burn, he reached for the gun. 

The hunter saw what he was doing and grabbed Tony's arm, twisting it behind him.

_ Shit shit shit.  _

He couldn't breathe, he couldn't move. He was gonna die. 

His vision began to spot, his head to swim. 

_ Christ, I'm gonna leave Peter all alone after all.  _

Through his spotty vision, he could just make out a wavy hand in the water, grabbing the gun. 

_ He's just gonna shoot me instead. No point waiting for me to drown.  _

A shot rang out and the weight on top of him suddenly fell away. 

Tony shot up, looking around wildly, gasping air into his greedy lungs.

Peter stood before him, pistol clutched in both shaking hands, arms held awkwardly due to his injured arm, weapon pointed right where the man who'd been drowning Tony had been. The gun was still smoking.

Peter dropped his hands, his eyes ridiculously wide. 

"Man, I...I shot the hell outta that guy, huh?"

His voice held disbelief. 

Peter dropped where he stood, sitting heavily. 

"I feel sick."

_ First human kill. First human kill and it was because of me.  _

Tony yanked his gun from the boy's clammy hand. 

"Why didn't you just hang back like I  _ told you to _ ?"

Peter raised his head and stared at him like he was crazy. 

"Well, uh….You're glad I didn't, right?"

Tony turned away and began to roughly gather everything that he'd dropped when he'd fallen. 

"I'm glad I didn't get my head blown off by a goddamn kid with a fucked up arm who's never shot anyone." 

He heard Peter launch himself up and stomp towards him. 

" _ What?  _ Are you  _ kidding  _ me? You don't have  _ anything _ else for me? How about, 'Hey, Peter, I know it wasn't easy but it was either him or me, thanks for  _ saving my ass'?" _

Tony stood and looked Peter in his flushed face. 

_ Innocent face that's not so innocent anymore.  _

"We gotta get going." Was all Tony said. 

"Yeah, sure." Peter was quiet. "Lead the way."

After that, every little thing Tony said was met with subtle sass. 

"Wait here, Peter."

"Sure, Tony, not going  _ anywhere _ ."

"We need to get back out to see which way the bridge is."

"Just tell me where to go, I'll follow your  _ every _ move."

"Are you gonna say something smart at every opportunity?"

"I'm just a kid, Tony, I'm not smart."

It waw infuriating. 

They found themselves in what looked like a ballroom, somewhere they'd held some rich private school prom, by the looks of the signs and decorations. 

"Woah." Peter was staring at a photo backdrop of a beach sunset.

Tony walked up to him gingerly.

"That's a backdrop. People would take their picture in front of it."

"Yeah, I  _ know  _ what it is."

Tony sighed through his teeth. "Pete…"

Peter threw up his hands. "I wasn't trying to disobey you back there, okay?" 

He hugged himself and looked at his feet.

"You were just taking a really long time and I thought that maybe you'd gotten into trouble."

Tony steeled himself. He needed to make this hit home. 

"It doesn't matter what you thought. I  _ need  _ you to listen to me." 

"I do listen to you!" Peter stressed. "Its just that…"

It was Peter's turn to sigh as he seemed to give up. "Whatever, Tony. Let's just go."

Tony sighed.

There was a doorway, up on the balcony, that could be their way out. 

The only way Tony could see to get up there was a large grand piano that they could push against a ledge to climb up. 

The piano was  _ way  _ heavier than he anticipated. Peter stood and watched as he struggled.

Tony growled. "Uh, how bout a hand?"

"You sure you can trust me with that?" 

"Peter, I swear to god…"

"Yeah, yeah."

Peter helped him push and climbed up first without looking back. 

_ Jesus, he's pissy. _

He didn't have time to dwell on it though, cause when they jumped out on a ledge, Tony could see a swarm of men patrolling the town square below.

_ Shit.  _

He couldn't take Peter down there, there weren't enough places to hide and entirely too many men. 

And going down by himself would be suicide. 

Tony weighed his options. 

And sighed. 

"I'm gonna jump down there and clear us a path."

Peter blinked at him. "And what about me?"

"You're gonna stay here." 

Peter looked as angry as Tony had ever seen him, like a snarling puppy. "Tony, this is so  _ stupid.  _ We'd have way more of a fucking chance if you'd just let me help!"

"I  _ am!" _

Peter stared at him. 

"You know your way around a gun, huh? Can you handle this?"

Tony brandished and held out his rifle. 

Peter blinked at it, looking uncertain. "Um….I  _ sorta _ shot a rifle before... but it was at rats."

"....Rats?"

"With BBs."

Tony closed his eyes. 

"Okay, well. This is the same concept. Here, take it. Lift it up."

Peter took and aimed the rifle, and Tony positioned the boy's shoulders and grip. 

Peter winced as he did so.  _ Shit. _

"Hey, you sure you got this? Your arm isn't gonna mess you up is it?" 

  
  


Peter clenched his jaw. "Yeah, I got it. It doesn't even hurt, just when you touched it as all." 

Tony didn't think that was completely true, but despetate times. 

"Alright, just lean right into the stock, okay? It's gonna kick a hell of a lot harder than a BB rifle, don't let it knock you back."

Peter nodded. 

"Pull the bolt back, just grab and tug it- there you go. And look, as soon as you get a shot off, you're get another round in there  _ quick."  _

"Look at me, kid." 

Peter did. 

"If I get into trouble down there, you make  _ every shot count _ , you got it?"

Peter clenched his jaw even harder, determination in his eyes. 

"I've got this."

"Yeah, you do."

Tony made to jump down, but paused.

"And Pete….just so we're clear.....it  _ was _ either him or me."

Their eyes met and held for a half a second.

  
  


Tony jumped down before he could hear Peter's small "You're welcome."

  
  
  
  


He wasn't able to stay hidden for long. There were just too many. But he was able to take out enough of them quietly that it was more of a fair chance when they spotted him. 

But with Pete watching his back he almost didn't have to worry. 

While he was locked in combat with one guy, Peter was taking out three. 

While he shot down two, Peter fired shot after shot. He didn't even let them get close to Tony. 

_ Atta boy. Just like that. _

When it was over, Tony called Peter down as he looted the downed bodies. 

As Peter walked to him, holding the huge rifle close to his body, looking small and young, big eyes sliding to every downed body, Tony fought with his instincts and his sensibilities. 

_ Sensibilities are useless, Stark. _

"How'd I do?" Peter asked as Tony gently took the rifle from him. 

Without a word, Tony took a handgun from one of the dead hunters. 

"How about something…." He trailed off as he loaded and inspected the small gun.. "A little more your size?" He held it out to Peter 

He pulled it back as Peter reached for it, looking into his face hard. "It's for emergencies  _ only _ , okay?" 

"Okay." Peter sighed out as he took the weapon, looking at it briefly before shoving it in his waist band.

"The safety's on, do you know how to--"

"Yeah, I do."

"You've just….Got to respect it, okay? It's not a toy. It's not for fun. It's not even for power. It's for survival. That's  _ it.  _ That's what it was made for and that's what it should be used for. Understand?"

Peter nodded solemnly. "Yeah. I understand."

They continued on in silence. Not bad silence, just….Needed silence. Almost necessary silence. 

Just because it wasn't rare for a boy to be forced to kill a dozen men didn't mean it…..heavy. 

Cutting through a building, they almost made it out before they heard the sounds of a heavy truck and screams. 

They quickly ducked under some windows as a man and a woman ran in front of them. 

"Yeah, keep running!" Came the taunting yell of a hunter. 

The woman spotted Peter as Tony pulled him down, and her eyes got wide. She started to yell for them, for help, something, right before her and the man were mowed down by two quick shots of a rifle. 

Peter gave a muffled, desperate whimper as he covered his own mouth with his hand. 

The woman reached a bloody, shaking hand towards them as two hunters jumped from a military truck that drove up beside the bodies. 

Blood oozed from her lips as she mouthed at them " _ help."  _ She met Tony's eyes 

A hunter then blew her brains out with a single rifle shot. 

Peter buried his face into Tony's shoulder. Tony felt sick. 

"Busy couple of days, huh?" One hunter said casually to the other as they searched the bodies of the people they'd just murdered. 

"Yeah.  _ Christ _ , they got no food, old pair of shoes….They got  _ nothing _ ." They rose. 

"Let's go." They hopped back onto the truck and it pulled away. 

Peter's face was still in Tony's shoulder, his hands clutching at Tony's jacket.

Tony gripped the boy's shoulders, pulled him away gently.

His heart turned over at the sight of Peter's red rimmed eyes and wet, distressed face. The bruise was icing on the heartwrenching cake.

"Peter…." 

"We could've helped her." The boy's voice was wrecked.

"No, buddy. We couldn't have helped her. She was hurt too bad and the hunters…"

Tony was at a loss. He had no idea how to console this sweet, stupidly empathetic kid. 

"They- they didn't do  _ anything,  _ Tony _ .  _ They were just trying to s-survive, just like us." More tears fell and turned into sobs. 

"Why- why would t-they...Why would  _ anyone _ \--"

"Easy, easy, kiddo, you're gonna make yourself sick."

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry--" 

"It's okay, you're okay. Just....here." 

He pushed Peter backwards against the wall so that he rested there, then slid up beside the kid and eased an arm around him. The kid seemed to need a human connection right now. 

Unlucky he was stuck with Tony. 

Tony sat with Peter while he cried, while the woman that he cried for's body cooled and stiffened not ten feet away from them.

It was a rough fucking existence for sweet kids like Peter.

"I'm glad I killed them."

Peter said it quietly, after his sobs had tapered away. 

"What?" Tony was afraid of the clarification. 

"Before. With the rifle. I felt....sick….about it before, but now…."

His brown eyes flashed. "I wish I'd killed more of them."

Tony breathed. 

He could understand this. 

The anger, the thirst for the end of evil lives. 

This he knew. This was familiar. 

"I know it feels good in theory. In your head…To think of them dying, just like all the people they kill." Tony keeps his voice even. "But death….It's too easy. Think about it. It happens, and then it's over. Their opportunity to suffer? It's gone. They'll never feel pain again. They'll never feel uncertain, or small, or unworthy again."

Peter watches him, eyes locked on Tony's face as he speaks. "And that's how they  _ should  _ feel Pete. They should be allowed to suffer. So they can live, for all I care. It's a hell of a lot harder than dying." 

"You're right." Peter gives softly, after some thought. "But I'm still gonna kill them if I have to. I'll even look forward to it."

_ No arguing with that. _

"You and me both kid."

Peter sits completely still, absorbing. Tony lets him.

But the sun is setting. "Let's get going, okay?"

Peter stands abruptly, looking down Tony with wet, but determined eyes. "Yeah, let's just...let's get to that bridge." 

_ There you go, kid.  _

They walked for a good thirty minutes, getting closer and closer to that bridge. 

Until they ran into the truck.

The truck, that of  _ course  _ had a military firing machine gun atop it.

The truck peppered stream after stream of bullets at them as they ran. Tony came  _ dangerously  _ close to being mowed by one.

"Tony!" 

"Just stay down and don't stop running, Peter!"

They managed to escape into a building, quickly climbing up and out of the fire escape, staying hidden there as they watched the truck circle and search for them, before finally giving up and speeding away almost angrily. 

"Oh, man." Peter breathed. 

"It's okay. We're okay now."

They walked along the edges of the building, staying close to the wall incase the truck popped up again.

"In here, Peter." Tony guestured to an open window, before hoisting himself up and over the sill, into the room. 

The second his feet hit the floor and he turned to help Peter through the window, thinking of his tender arm, someone jumped him from behind, strong arms circling his shoulders and neck. 

He walked his attacker back on pure instinct, spinning him, struggling to get him off.

Peter came through the window, switchblade ready, and charged towards them. 

The man raised an arm to fend the boy off, taking a slice to the arm as he pushed Peter back, causing him to fall.

The man froze, and stared at down at Peter. "What the fuck--?"

Tony took advantage of the man's surprise, slamming him back into the wall, then flipping him over his shoulder and onto the floor, beginning to lay punch after punch into him.

"Tony! Tony,  _ stop!" _

Tony raised his head at Peter's yelling, and saw a young girl with long brunette hair standing before them, pointing a shaky handgun at Tony. 

"Leave him  _ alone!"  _ She snaps, her eyes snapping between the three of them. 

Peter and Tony raised their hands. 

"Easy, alright?" Tony said steadily. "It's okay. Take it easy."

It was obvious the girl didn't know how to use the gun from her stance, to the way she held it clumsily. So she needed to  _ stop pointing it at them. _

The blonde man still groaning on the ground raised a hand at the girl. "It's okay, Lila, it's alright. They're not the bad guys. Lower the gun, sweetheart." 

She did, still eyeing them suspiciously.

The man groaned again as he set up. "Ugh, man, you hit  _ hard."  _

"Well, I  _ was _ trying to kill you."

The man stood up, and faced them. Peter and Tony had dropped their arms by now.

"Yeah, I thought you were one of them, too." The man said. His eyes flicked to Peter, who was still clutching his switchblade. 

"Then I saw him. If you haven't noticed….They don't keep kids around."

The man turned and gestured for the for girl to come to him, taking the pistol from her and turning her to open her backpack.

"I'm Clint. This is my daughter, Lila. I think I caught your name was Tony?"

Clint seemed pleasant enough, but Tony stayed cautious.

"Yeah." 

"I'm Peter." Peter seened to have no desire to be cautious. 

"How many are with you?" Tony questioned.

"They're all dead." The girl said, almost forcibly emotionless.

"Hey." Clint chided. He'd taken a first aid kit from his daughter's bag and began to bandage his arm. "We don't know that."

Clint flicked his eyes back to Tony and Peter.

"There were a bunch of us, someome had the  _ brilliant  _ idea of entering the city, look for supplies. Those fuckers ambushed us. Scattered us." 

Clint looked grim as he finished with his arm. "Now it's all about getting out of this shit hole."

Peter perked up beside him. "Well, we can help each other." 

" _ Peter. _ "

"C'mon, Tony, safety in numbers and all that! Right?" 

"He's right." Clint spoke up before Tony could argue with Peter further. 

"We could help each other. We got a hideout, not too far from here. It'd be safer to chat there." 

The question was in his voice.  _ What do you say? _

Tony turned to look at Peter. The boy was still favoring his arm to the point of it being a hindrance, and Tony still hadn't gotten a chance to look at it. They were both tired and on edge from everything they'd been through in just the last few hours. 

_ Fine. _

"Take us there."

"Follow me."

They did. 

"Sorry about the whole,  _ gun  _ thing." Tony heard Lila say to Peter behind him as they walked.

"It's okay. I would have done the same thing. Where are you from?"

"Hartford."

"Really? I heard some bad stuff went down there." 

"Yeah, the military abandoned the zone." Clint spoke up. "It's why we left. Place probably looks like this by now."

They cut into an old toy store. 

"Get down, away from the windows!" Clint snapped as they heard the sudden roaring of that goddamn truck. 

They all ducked and waited for it to pass. 

"Jesus, that fucking truck. It's been hounding us since we escaped from-- Lila, what are you doing?"

The small girl jumped. In her hand she held what looked to be a small, plastic toy horse.

"Nothing." 

"Get rid of it."

"My backpack is practically empty!"

"What's the rule about taking stuff?"

"Dad, it weighs like nothing--"

"The  _ rule _ ?"

Lila sighed, her angry brown eyes going resigned. 

"We only take what we have to." She dropped the tiny toy to the ground and turned away.

Clint sighed. "That's right. Now come on."

Tony, who promptly decided that  _ that  _ exchange was none of his business, asked, "So how far is this place?" As they walked out of the toy shop. 

"Not far. Just right up ahead." 

The got halfway down another hallway before Tony noticed Peter wasn't behind him.

"Peter?" He called, whirling around.

The boy came jogging out of the toy store and to his side. "Yeah, I'm right here. I was just…looking at stuff."

Tony sighed in annoyance. "You've  _ got  _ to stay close. C'mon, you know this."

"I know, I know. Won't happen again."

They continued to walk, and Peter and Lila struck up more conversation. 

"So, how old are you?" Lila asked him. 

"Fourteen, you?"

"Um, same."

"Oh, you're fourteen huh? Do I have some dates wrong?" Clint teased, a smirk in his voice.

"I'm  _ close.  _ I  _ will _ be, in a couple years." Lila pouted defensively. 

_ Jesus.  _ Tony didn't wanna think about a kid even  _ younger  _ than Peter. It almost didn't seem possible.

They climbed into an old apartment building, Clint brandishing a key in front of one of the doors. 

"Got this off of one I killed. He won't miss it." 

He opened the door, leading them into a spacious living room that wasn't in too bad of shape, before closing the door and locking them safely inside.

"How long have you guys been holed up in here?" Peter asked Lila. 

"Uh, a few days. We have some food! We found a blueberry bush growing out of control in some guy's backyard. You- you want any?"

"Sure!" Peter gave her a bright smile. Tony knew he had to be hungry. 

Lila, blushing, led Peter over to sit on the couch, a small bucket full of plump blueberries sitting on a coffee table in front of them. The kids dug into the fruit.

"You want any?" Clint offered.

Tony shook his head, checking the windows. "I'm fine."

Clint huffed. "C'mon, man, we're safe here."

Tony turned to study him. "So why haven't you left?" The bridge was  _ right there.  _ Just outside the window.

The man shrugged his broad shoulders. "Been waiting for the right oppurtunity."

"And?" 

" _ And... _ I'll show you."

He led Tony over to the farthest window on the left side of the room. 

"Look there." 

The entrance to the bridge was a gate, opened, but a dozen men gathered there. 

"Everyday the sons of bitches congregate there. Come night fall, it's down to a skeleton crew. After sunset. That's our window. With most of them gone, we can sneak right past them. The both of us." 

Bright, happy laughter came from behind them.

Clint aimed a smile at the kids, who were throwing blueberries in the air and trying to catch them in their mouths. 

" _ Wow….. _ It's been a while since that girl even cracked a smile."

He studied Tony. "He doesn't seem bothered by all this, your boy."

He was asking a question.  _ What's your story? What's his? _

Tony sucked in a breath.  _ Avoid that. _

"So, where are you headed?"

Clint seemed to know he was avoiding, but continued on anyway. 

"Avengers. Heard they were out west somewhere. We're gonna join up with them."

Tony couldn't hold back a bark of laughter. 

Clint blinked at him, annoyance coloring his strong features. "Something funny?"

"I don't know, it just seems like there's alot of people putting their stock in the Avengers these days." Tony chuckled bitterly again. 

"Maybe there's a reason for that."

"So you don't know where they are, and you're just gonna drag your little girl across the country looking for them?" 

_ That's exactly what I'm doing. _

Clints eyes flashed. "I'll tell you what, why you don't you let me worry about my daughter, and you worry about your boy?" 

Tony rolled his eyes at the man's anger. "Easy, alright? We're looking for the Avengers too." 

Clint contemplated Tony for a long minute, before yanking a small map from his pocket and smacking it onto the table top.

"This is us." He pointed to a marked place on the map. "There's an abandoned military radio station right  _ here,  _ and any survivors from our group are supposed to meet us there...tomorrow."

Clint held Tony's gaze. "You and your boy, you wanna join us...It goes down tonight."

_ Why not? _

"Then I guess we should rest up." 

"I guess we should."

Tony went to Peter and pulled him away from the blueberry games. "Lemme Look at your arm, Pete."

Peter followed and sat in an arm chair that Tony directed him into.

"It's not that bad anymore."

"Uh huh." 

Tony slid Peter's jacket from his shoulders, sliding his tender arm gently from the sleeve.

"Jesus." 

The boy's arm was badly bruised and swollen at the elbow and wrist joints, and had several almost perfect bruises in the shape of two large hands along his forearm.  _ The hands that had been trying to break his damn bone.  _

Tony felt out of breath. 

There was nothing he could actually do for the injury. What it needed was ice and rest, but both were impossible. 

The elbow was the ugliest, and Tony hated to do  _ nothing  _ for it, so he took some bandages and wrapped them around the joint as tightly as was safe. 

"Just...be careful with it, alright? It should be fine in...in a few days, week at the most." It was an exaggeration, but he wanted to give the boy some good news. 

"It's fine, Tony." 

It wasn't. It had to hurt like a fucking  _ bitch _ , and Tony thought of all the times Peter had been forced to use it without a word of complaint. 

_ God.  _

"C'mere, buddy." Tony pulled Peter to his feet (after helping him back into his jacket) and led him to one of the big couches that looked the cleanest. 

"Lay down and rest here, Pete. We're gonna be leaving tonight, so you just….try to sleep, and rest that arm, okay? I'll wake you when we're ready."

"You're gonna sleep too, right?" Peter asked, raising his head from the couch pillow Tony had slid beneath it as he'd lay down.

"Course I will. Gotta make sure I'm sharp in case I have to save your ass, don't I?" 

Peter grinned as he cuddled into the couch. 

" _ Ha _ , more like in case I have to save  _ yours _ again." 

"Oh yeah. You sure helped me out there, Pete. So why don't we both rest so we'll be able to save these new guys' asses, how about that?"

Peter giggled drowsily, his eyes already dropping. "Yeah, we make….A good team, huh?"

"Yeah." Tony said softly, lulling the boy to sleep. 

"Yeah, kiddo, we sure do."

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


  
  
  
  
  


  
  
  
  


  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> <3


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